Nevada Court Rules Google Cache is Fair Use

Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Contact:

Fred von Lohmann
   Senior Intellectual Property Attorney
   Electronic Frontier Foundation
   fred@eff.org
   +1 415 436-9333 x123 (office), +1 415 215-6087 (cell)

Nevada Court Rules Google Cache is Fair Use

Important Milestone for Digital Copyright Law

San Francisco - A federal district court in Nevada has
ruled that Google does not violate copyright law when it
copies websites, stores the copies, and transmits them to
Internet users as part of its Google Cache feature. The
ruling clarifies the legal status of several common search
engine practices and could influence future court cases,
including the lawsuits brought by book publishers against
the Google Library Project. The Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF) was not involved in the case but applauds
last week's ruling for clarifying that fair use covers new
digital uses of copyrighted materials.

Blake Field, an author and attorney, brought the copyright
infringement lawsuit against Google after the search engine
automatically copied and cached a story he posted on his
website. Google responded that its Google Cache feature,
which allows Google users to link to an archival copy of
websites indexed by Google, does not violate copyright law.
The court agreed, holding that the Cache qualifies as a
fair use of copyrighted material.

"This ruling makes it clear that the Google Cache is legal
and clears away copyright questions that have troubled the
entire search engine industry," said Fred von Lohmann, EFF
senior staff attorney. "The ruling should also help Google
in defending against the lawsuit brought by book publishers
over its Google Library Project, as well as assisting
organizations like the Internet Archive that rely on
caching."

Field v. Google ruling:
http://www.eff.org/IP/blake_v_google/google_nevada_order.pdf

For this release:
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2006_01.php#004345

About EFF

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil
liberties organization working to protect rights in the
digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and
challenges industry and government to support free
expression and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported
organization and maintains one of the most linked-to
websites in the world at http://www.eff.org/


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