We’ve been discussing how Lord Lucas in the UK has spoken out against Peter Mandelson’s Digital Economy Bill, which would give Mandelson (and his successors or anyone he deputized) massive powers to change copyright law on a whim. Beyond that, the technology-savvy Lord Lucas has been proposing various amendments to the bill, including requiring copyright holders to detail actual damages and also a penalty for bogus copyright threats.
Another proposed amendment, as pointed out by Copycense would automatically exempt search engines from copyright law. While, for the most part, what search engines do seem to be covered by existing law (fair use, and the like), there are still some questions about whether or not the fundamental actions of search engines do or do not infringe. Clearly exempting them, however, could expand what search engines could do in some pretty impressive ways. This would also serve to negate the threats by the likes of Rupert Murdoch to remove News Corp. content from Google (since Google could then ignore any attempted block, as there would be no copyright violation).
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