Impact of Field v. Google on the Google Library Project

I’ve finally had a chance to read the federal district court ruling in a case, Field v. Google, that has not been covered much (except in the technology press), but which has obvious and important implications for the upcoming battle[1] over the legality of Google’s library digitization project[2]. The case, Field v. Google[3], involved a lawyer who dabbles in some online poetry[4], and who was annoyed that Google’s spider cached a version of his copyrighted ode to delicious tea[5] (“Many of us must have it iced, some of us take it hot and combined with milk, and others are not satisfied unless they know that only the rarest of spices and ingredients are contained therein...”). Field sued Google for copyright infringement; Google argued fair use. Field lost the case, with most of his points rejected by the court. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has hailed Google’s victory as a significant one, and indeed there are some very good aspects of the ruling for the book copying case. But there also seem to be some major differences between Google’s wholesale copying of websites and its wholesale copying of books that the court implicitly recognized. The following seem to be the advantages and disadvantages of this ruling for Google, the University of Michigan[6], and others who wish to see the library project reach completion.