Judge Dismisses Key Claims Against Google in Publishers’ Piracy Suit

A Manhattan federal court dismissed several claims against Google brought by major educational publishers, while allowing key parts of the lawsuit to proceed, according to Reuters.

U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rochon ruled that publishers Cengage Learning, McGraw Hill, Macmillan Learning, and Elsevier failed to provide sufficient evidence to support allegations of vicarious copyright infringement and violations of New York state law by Google. However, per a statement from the judge’s office, Google could not avoid liability at this stage regarding the publishers’ trademark infringement claim.

The lawsuit, originally filed last year, accuses Google of promoting pirated electronic versions of textbooks through its search engine, allegedly pushing discounted, unauthorized copies to the top of search results and overshadowing legitimate offerings. The publishers contend that Google ignored numerous copyright infringement notices and benefited financially from the sale of these pirated materials.

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According to a statement from the publishers on Thursday, they expressed satisfaction that some claims were allowed to move forward. The statement also noted that the dismissal of other claims “will not save Google from having to explain why a company with its resources decided to side with blatant piracy, rather than with creators and copyright holders.”

Google has denied the accusations, emphasizing that the e-books in question “are not sold through Google’s platform and Google does not share in revenues from such sales,” according to a statement from the company.

Judge Rochon’s ruling highlighted that the publishers’ claim of vicarious copyright infringement was dismissed because Google was found not to have control over the conduct of the alleged pirate sellers. Nonetheless, the court rejected Google’s motion to dismiss the trademark infringement allegations, finding there is a plausible claim that Google may bear responsibility for unauthorized use of the publishers’ trademarks by third-party sellers.

The judge also allowed a contributory copyright infringement claim, which Google had not yet sought to dismiss, to remain active in the case, per the court’s statement.

Source: Reuters