Alexa and copyright

[Dan Robinson / Indexing Services]

Harry, thanks for the alert and the question. I think there are big
copyright issues. Unless each page in the archive carries a 'used by
permission of the copyright holder' note, I think Alexa is in for some
big time legal action. 


Dan Robinson
drobinson at hwwilson.com

On 26 Mar 98 at 5:59, Harry M. Kriz wrote:

> 
> A few columnists in the computer press have enthusiastically
> described a new Web utility named Alexa. You can read about it at
> 
> http://www.alexa.com/
> 
> The company Alexa Internet is archiving the entire Web periodically.
> it claims to have an 8 terabyte database of Web pages. If a Web page
> becomes unavailable for any reason, Alexa will provide a copy from
> its archive.
> 
> This practice strikes me as the largest violation of intellectual
> property rights and copyright law in the history of civilization.
> But then I'm not a lawyer, just a librarian and Web publisher. Alexa
> did not ask my permission to archive my Web sites, nor to republish
> them on demand even when I withdraw pages from publication.
> 
> I'm curious about your opinions concerning Alexa's Web archive,
> intellectual property rights, and copyright law.
> 
> --Harry
> 
> 
>