Wayback Machine: we won't archive pages if owners object

According to an Apr. 25 announcement, “Internet Archive, a library of historical Web site content, and Suzanne Shell, the author and owner of the Web site www.profane-justice.org, jointly announced today the settlement of their lawsuit, which stemmed from the archiving of Ms. Shell’s Web site in Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. … The Internet Archive said, ‘Internet Archive has no interest in including materials in the Wayback Machine of persons who do not wish to have their Web content archived. We recognize that Ms. Shell has a valid and enforceable copyright in her Web site and we regret that the inclusion of her Web site in the Wayback Machine resulted in this litigation. We are happy to have this case behind us.'” The Wayback Machine allows interested persons to go back to examine what particular web pages looked like at earlier dates. Jason Lee Miller has more at WebProNews (Apr. 25) as does John Ottaviani at Technology and Marketing Law Blog (Mar. 14 and May 1), both focusing on Shell’s theory that visiting spiders are capable of creating contractual relations. We covered a case raising some of the same issues on Jul. 13, 2005.