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Google Wins Nevada Copyright Case

A judge found that serving pages of a story on a writer's Web site, from the Google cache, was protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This ruling could help Google with other legal issues it's facing in its bid to scan books and other copyrighted materials.

A Nevada judge has ruled in favor of Google Inc. in a copyright case that legal experts said Thursday could be helpful in its defense against lawsuits filed by writers and publishers challenging the search engine's initiative to scan and store copyrighted library books.

In addition, Google's library project offers less material than in the Field case. In the library project, Google says it would only show snippets from copyrighted books, unless it has permission to display more. In the Field case, Google displayed the whole story.

The Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild sued Google last year, challenging the project and arguing the company needs to have permission to copy protected works. Both cases are pending.

Under the library project, Google plans to digitize books from the collections of Stanford University, Harvard University, the University of Michigan, Oxford University and the New York Public Library. The latter two are making available only books in the public domain.

Full Article: InformationWeek

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