"Copyright law doesn't cover google indexing the page for its search engine anymore than it covers me posting a list of my favorite songs on my blog. Would you

"Copyright law doesn't cover google indexing the page for its search engine anymore than it covers me posting a list of my favorite songs on my blog. Would you argue that someone can't develop a song recommendation engine without acquiring a license for every song in their database? By your argument this very site is infringing the copyrights of all the authors HN ever links to." This is a straw man. Posting links is different than sending thousands of requests to a server (Googlebot) and archiving the contents. Obviously fair use applies, but Google would not be Google if restricted to fair use. "Why should [Mark Cuban's] opinion on this be relevant?" A number of reasons. First that he's been advocating this exact play as the way to beat Google since May 2008 [1]. Second, his experience at the intersection of content and superdistribution (the web) qualifies him to comment on the viability of such a model. He's founded, invested in, and sold more web content companies than any one else I know of (e.g., HDNet, Weblogs Inc, Broadcast.com). And he bankrolled Grokster when MGM took them to the Supreme Court, so he's got a vocal opinion on content usage rights. All that info is available on Wikipedia of course, but I don't believe you read it and are still asking why his viewpoint is relevant to this discussion. [1] http://blogmaverick.com/2008/05/14/beating-google/ http://blogmaverick.com/2008/05/14/beating-google/