PHP fopen ideas?

[freehits]

Catching this error,

fopen(http://www.altavista.com/web/results...1&kls=0&nbq=30): failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.1 999 Unable to process request at this time -- error 999

Which is altavista telling my scraper to come back when you are a real browser I assume. Any ideas on the best work around for
the

$URL = $name;
$file = fopen("$URL", "r");

which is suddenly getting rejected? I doubt I have even hit them 50 times today with this, so if knowing im not abusing them makes you more apt to give constructive suggestions...then I am not.

I assume its just one of many ways to pose as a browser is needed?