Google wins Usenet copyright case
Google has won a legal action brought over a Usenet posting that the search giant archived and partially displayed in search results. Writer Gordon Roy Parker had claimed that this breached his copyright in the posting, a chapter of an e-book. Chaulk a win up for Google!
Judge R Barclay Surrick of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania did not agree. ?It is clear that Google?s automatic archiving of Usenet postings and excerpting of websites in its results to users? search queries do not include the necessary volitional element to constitute direct copyright infringement,? he wrote. Nor did he accept that the automatic caching of material amounted to infringement, following a January ruling by the Navada District Court on this very point.
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