Field argued that Google infringed his exclusive right to reproduce his copyrighted works when it "cached" his website and made a copy of it available on its search engine.
Google raised multiple defenses: fair use, implied license, estoppel, and Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe harbor protection.
Field sought $2,550,000 in statutory damages ($50,000 for each of the 51 registered copyrighted works) in conjunction with injunctive relief.
Website creators have the option of preventing the Googlebot from indexing their sites by including a simple code in the HTML.
The court relied on two prior cases (Religious Technology Center v. Netcom On-Line Communication Services, Inc. and CoStar Group, Inc. v. LoopNet, Inc.) and held that "volitional conduct on the part of the defendant" is required for a showing of direct infringement.
The court explained that Field's use was to enrich the lives of others through poetry, while Google's use was to facilitate the operation of search engines.
The fourth factor, "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work", weighed in favor of Google.
The court considered an additional factor, "Google's good faith in operating its system cache," which favored fair use.
for infringement of copyright by reason of the intermediate and temporary storage of material on a system or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider."