ISPs are already required to respond to requests to remove copyrighted materials--so copyright authors already have a remedy. Burdening search engines and other indexing services with a responsibility to filter their results through an RIAA-approved list would only slow their searches and dragoon their employees into the service of the copyright industry.

And the cost of this constant monitoring will be measured in lost innovations. What engineer would have been willing to design the content-neutral HTTP protocol that undergirds the Web if it had been viewed with the same suspicion as the content-neutral OpenNap protocol is today? Both protocols are capable of non-infringing use, and new ways of sharing information, regardless of the motives of their developers, offer the potential for vast social benefits.

Our society makes a distinction between speech and act, and for good reason. Whether Napster itself survives is of concern only to the company's employees and investors. But using the costs of compliance as a weapon against search engines --punishing the providers of information for its misuse--will only limit our access to information and should concern everyone.

Stephen E. Sachs '02 is a history concentrator in Quincy House. His column appears on alternate Tuesdays.