Skim bypass fee?

[lassiter]

Originally posted by BigJohn
Just because copyrighted material is freely available doesn't mean someone who doesn't own it can sell it. Copyright is about the RIGHTS of the owner to decide if and how their owned material can be used.

My point was they aren't selling or reselling the content. They are selling their collating and indexing capability.
Again, a search engine would be a better comparison. And as you imply, in strict terms, copyright should apply to Google's indexing of millions of web sites they do not own, since copyright protection exists independently of whether or not someone is profiting monetarily. But since they are neither providing nor prohibiting anyone's access to a (free) gallery that already exists on the web for public viewing, but instead are offering a search and indexing service for the convenience of the surfer, I suspect their legal ass is covered. I know there have been legal issues over their caching of content on their own servers, which amounts to copying/duplication of actual content without permission, but that's a different issue entirely.

Even if Google or Yahoo went to a "pay $5.00 month to not see ads" format, the money would be for their value-added indexing service, not for "access" to any of the sites listed, since Google would have no control over actual surfer access to any indexed sites.

But even if I'm wrong about this (and I very well may be, I freely admit), presumably this theoretical for-pay TGP would be using galleries voluntarily submitted to it by webmasters, so permission for indexing of the material through the TGP would be implied automatically, no?