Field v. Google

Citation: Field v. Google, Inc., 2006 WL 242465 (D. Nev. 2006).

Nevada lawyer Blake A. Field authored and registered for copyright several works that he posted to his personal website, www.blakeswritings.com, knowing and intending that his works would be indexed and cached by Google’s automated Googlebot program. Field also knew that he could prevent Google’s program from caching his site, simply by including a “no-index” metatag on his web pages; but Field chose not to do that. Field also knew that Google has a process that allows website owners to have their pages removed from Google’s cache; but Field didn’t do that either. Instead, Field included code on his website that allowed Google to index and cache it; and then he sued Google for infringement.

Federal District Judge Robert Jones granted Google’s motion for summary judgment, holding that Google did not infringe the copyrights to literary materials posted on a free website, by caching those materials or making them accessible to Google users. Judge Jones ruled that Google had an implied license to cache Field’s website, that Field was estopped from claiming his copyrights were infringed, that Google’s cache was a fair use, and that Google was protected from liability by the “safe harbor” provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.