Google Still Tramples Authors Despite Copyright Win

A federal judge just threw out a copyright suit against Google by the author of "Why Hotties Choose Losers," among other masterpieces. But that ruling has no effect on the publishers and authors suing Google over its book-scanning project, Google Books. Gordon Roy Parker, who publishes online "sexual seduction guides" including "Why Hotties Choose Losers," acted as his own lawyer in the suit. His complaint argued that Google should be held responsible for the anonymous attacks on him posted on Usenet newsgroups archived by Google, and on Google's search index.

The suit argued, oddly enough, that by holding that material in its cache, Google violated copyright law.

Judge R. Barclay Surrick of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania was not impressed. He rejected all of Parker's 11 allegations and threw out the suit.

The judge did the right thing. If Google cannot cache material, it might as well close down shop. But Parker may be able to find some consolation in the judge's action. After all, he's a loser now, so he can follows his own books' advice, and find some "hotties" to console him.

By the way, this suit has absolutely nothing to do with the suit by authors and publishers against Google Print, in which Google scans books without copyright holders' permissions and makes them available to anyone on the Web. From my point of view, that's a clear violation of copyright law.We'll have to wait a while for that one to be resolved. I expect it to make it to the Supreme Court --- and I'm looking for the Supremes to agree with copyright holders, and rule against Google.