Friday, January 27, 2006

Google Cache Legal

Via boingboing, from EFF, A district court in Nevada has ruled that the Google cache is a legal, because:
  1. Caching itself does not directly infringe the copyrighted works at issue, because i) the chching is done automatically; ii) that there are meta-tags available to prevent this automatica process; iii) Cached contents can be removed by owner's requests;
  2. Google is granted an implied license to reproduce and distribute copies of the copyrighted works at issue;
  3. It's a fair use under 17 U.S.C. § 107;

Author and attorney Blake Field of the state of Nevada also contributed to this significant process by losing a lawsuit manufactured and brought up by himself. Furthermore, the court finds Field estopped himself by deliberately setting up a trap. Another blunder Mr. Field made was he failed to bring up a case against Google's robot in making copies of his works, which may be seen as closer to a 'direct infringement' of his copyrighted works. Instead, he brought up the case against the caching, which qualifies for the DMCA's 512(b) caching 'safe harbor' for online service providers.

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