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July 13, 2007 2:11 PM PDT
Google wins another copyright case
An appeals court in Pennsylvania has affirmed a lower court's dismissal of a lawsuit against Google. The lawsuit was filed by Gordon Roy Parker, a writer who claimed the search giant infringed on his copyright by archiving a Usenet posting of his and providing excerpts from his Web site in search results. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruled over a year ago that under case law, Google's activities were akin to those of an Internet Service Provider and thus did not constitute copyright infringement by automatically archiving a copy of the Usenet posting. In a decision handed down this week, the appellate court for that same district affirmed that ruling.
I cannot understand why the Court didn't follow this interpretation. Well, perhaps this decision may serve as a leading case for any other kinds of publishing. A song being broadcast may be broadcast further on without the consent of the author. Or a potatoe being designed and patented by an industrial company may be grown even without the consent of that designing company... Hmmm, good news, everyone!