# Google cache and copyright law
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-cache-and-copyright-law/132707
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 17, 2002, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-cache-and-copyright-law/132707 "2002-10-17T18:40:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2002, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-cache-and-copyright-law/132707/1 "2002-10-17T18:40:38Z")
Google caches pages, although some sites (like Washington Post) charge to access to those pages after a certain time has passed since their original publication. How does Google work around that? If they make the page available for free, isn’t that violation of copyright law? If they are selective, how could they possible figure out which sites not to cache, given the volume they have to handle?
---
### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2002, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-cache-and-copyright-law/132707/2 "2002-10-17T19:35:29Z")
```auto
```
That’s the magic line that webmasters can insert into their pages to stop Google from caching them. It’s common knowledge among web types (I should hope), so if they forget to put the tags on pages with subscriber-only content, then I would say that that is their lookout…
---
### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2002, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-cache-and-copyright-law/132707/3 "2002-10-17T19:38:44Z")
Confirmation from Google’s own [site](http://www.google.com/help/features.html):
[/quote]
The “Cached” link will be missing for sites that have not been indexed, as well as for sites whose owners have requested we not cache their content.
[quote]
---
### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2002, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-cache-and-copyright-law/132707/4 "2002-10-17T19:44:25Z")
Of course, another thing that’s common knowledge among web types is that the slash goes on the closing tag, not the opening one. :smack: