Germany Supports the G-Library

On Wednesday, a German court told German book publisher WBG that it's suit against the Google Library Project was unlikely to succeed. WBG's petition for a preliminary injunction against Google was then dropped. Though this has no bearing on the Author's Guild's suit here, it is worth noting that the German court rejected the copyright infringement claim since the Google Library Project snippets hardly differ from the snippets on an ordinary Google search result page, which don't constitute copyright infringement either. Google is delighted with the result.

What's interesting then is that if US courts decide the G-Library violates copyright law, while Germany says it's ok, does that not create the possibility that the G-Library would be legally insulated if it were hosted in Germany? US copyright would not supersede German copyright and the only response would seem to be restricting domestic internet access to such a site. Alas, we would have the Great Copyright-Wall of America. Doubtful, but not impossible, which is kind of sad.