[weegee]

While news agencies may pull their sites, we can link through Google's caches and also can post the relevant passages under the "fair use" doctrine.

But examine what you said there... Google caches all of the media's articles (except those who opt out) without paying to do so. Why is Google granted a priviledge that is not afforded Free Republic? Have these outlets all sent their cease and decist letters to Google.com?

If not, then they are not effectively protecting their copyrights.

Google even caches Free Republic.

[Piranha]

Weegee, you make a great point. I don't know why Google, and the other sites that cache websites (there were a few mentioned above) are able to continue to do so without getting complaints of copyright violation. This could be very significant.

[Piranha]

Here's an article about Google's caching and the issues that it raises in copyright. I have linked to the cached version of the article

http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:ep3w0rt4xy0J:news.com.com/2100-1038_3-1024234.html+google+caching+%22fair+use%22&hl=en&start=2&ie=UTF-8