I wrote earlier this month of a French lawsuit becoming the third one I knew about filed against Google over its book scanning project. Turns out, there was a fourth one -- based out of Germany. But now we're back to three, as Google has just announced that the German one has been withdrawn.
It looks to be Google's first legal victory in the battles over the project. From Google, via its Inside Google Book Search blog (and also on its main blog):
WBG, a German publisher, today decided to drop its petition for preliminary injunction against the Google Books Library Project. WBG (whose legal action was supported by the German Publishers Association as an industry model) made the decision after being told by the Copyright Chamber of the Regional Court of Hamburg that its petition was unlikely to succeed.
It's our belief that the display of short snippets from in-copyright books does not infringe German copyright law. Today the Court indicated that it agreed, drawing a comparison with the snippets used in Google web search. And the Court also rejected the WBG's argument that the scanning of its books in the U.S. infringed German copyright law.
Marketers Rejoice! ClickZ has launched ClickZ Live, an educational series to bring you innovative online marketing strategies and techniques. Learn to construct and successfully execute multi-channel marketing campaigns, plus identify key metrics and translate them into actionable plans.
Thursday, July 18: ClickZ Live will be in Vancouver, BC. Register before July 1 to save $100!
