A German court has handed Google’s controversial book-scanning project a significant victory, encouraging a publishing company to drop its efforts to file a preliminary injunction against the search juggernaut.
Like many other publishing houses, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (WBG) had objected to the digitization project, arguing that Google’s plan to post snippets of copyrighted books amounted to a violation of German copyright law.
WBG sought an injunction that would prevent Google from scanning its books, but the German court—the copyright chamber of a regional court in Hamburg—was unreceptive. The court did not rule specifically against WBG, but judges told the publisher that it was unlikely to receive the injunction it sought. WBG decided to abandon its efforts shortly thereafter, according to the Guardian.
In a statement posted online today, Google representatives defended the legality of their book-scanning project and said they were “delighted” by WBG’s decision to drop its petition. —Brock Read
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