[advocacy] Open source and business (was Open/Free/Personal music licenses)

[Daniel James]

> Yes, I understand the reason why you are cautious to
> commercial organizations as they might become another
> 'middlemen.'  However, I have to point out that Google
> is a company

Sure, but they don't charge for searching. Can we imagine a
pay-to-play search engine? Can't see that doing very well...

> and they do not listen to any suggestion
> if they think that it is not beneficial

Naturally, although if they think that images or PDF's are worth
searching for, then presumably audio files are too.

> or even has a
> risk of being involved in series of lawsuits.

I had a think about that - they wouldn't want to be cast as the new
Napster. However:

1. Most unauthorised copies of music are outside the visible web, ie
in peer to peer networks which Google doesn't search, aren't they?

2. If unathorised copies of music do exist in the visible web, then
Google would be an excellent tool for royalty collection societies to
track down where they are, and send bills to the infringing site
owners.

3. Google already searches for images, which are certainly covered by
copyright. It puts up a disclaimer notice about copyright on the
results page - presumably they checked this with a lawyer. Why
wouldn't the same remedy apply to audio files?

Daniel

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