French Politicians Want To Create Ancillary Copyright In Thumbnail Images

from the make-your-views-known dept

Despite the fact that copyright has been repeatedly extended and strengthened over the years, the thought never seems to cross publishers' minds that they could ever have too much of it, or that the public might have some countervailing rights here. As a consequence of this insatiable appetite, there have been a number of recent moves to create an ancillary copyright, also known as a "snippet tax," "link tax" and "Google tax," since it aims to make it obligatory to pay for making even short excerpts or linking to copyright material -- for example, in search results. Rather amazingly, publishers are still pushing for this new monopoly "right" despite abundant evidence from their own research that it harms their businesses.

Undeterred by these facts, some politicians in France are pushing for the creation of yet another kind of ancillary copyright, covering thumbnail images. That idea was squashed a long time ago in the US, but as the public domain advocacy group Comunia explains, in France, the following is still a real possibility:

A new right that would require search engines and indexing services to pay royalties for the use of thumbnail images of copyright protected works. According to French proposal, which has been approved by the French Senate, this new right would be managed by one or more collecting societies, regardless of the intention of the rightholders whether to be financially compensated for the use of their works by search engines.

In an open letter to the French Minister of Culture (pdf) Comunia explains why this is a really stupid idea:

Its scope will impact many online services and mobile apps, from search engines to creative commons models and [the online cultural collection] Europeana. Money would be collected arbitrarily and without any realistic way of redistributing it accurately. Basic, every day activities of online users, such as posting, linking, embedding photos online, would be subject to a cloud of legal uncertainty.

It would isolate France in the European Union, at a time when courts across Europe have made clear these were lawful activities under national, European and international laws. It would isolate France globally, as a country where using images online would be subject to restrictive and unworkable practice.

Unfortunately, France isn't the only part of Europe that is considering the introduction of ancillary copyright. This week, the European Commission launched a public consultation on the idea of giving publishers what it calls "neighbouring rights" -- in other words, ancillary copyright:

[The European Commission] is seeking views on the role of publishers in the copyright value chain, including the possible extension to publishers of the neighbouring rights. Publishers do not currently benefit from neighbouring rights which are similar to copyright but do not reward an authors' original creation (a work). They reward either the performance of a work (e.g. by a musician, a singer, an actor) or an organisational or financial effort (for example by a producer) which may also include a participation in the creative process.

The European Commission paints European publishers as somehow missing out on the ancillary copyright currently enjoyed by those in the music or theatre worlds. The intention is clearly to suggest that this kind of extra right is perfectly normal, and that it should -- of course -- be granted to those poor, struggling publishers, who barely have any copyright at all, apparently. However, that framing rather skates over the fact that posting an article on a website is hardly a creative act on a par with performing a song, or appearing in a play. So it's not entirely clear why the European Commission thinks it deserves an extra layer of legal protection on top of standard copyright -- other than the fact that publishers want that new monopoly in the hope of extracting money from Google.

Fortunately, the consultation is open to everyone, including those outside the EU, which means Techdirt readers everywhere can make their views known using the online questionnaire. As a bonus, you can also give your views on the so-called "panorama exception" -- another area where lobbyists are working hard to make copyright even less fit for the digital age than it is now.

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Filed Under: ancillary copyright, copyright, europe, fair use, france, google tax, thumbnails

NY Times Files Ridiculous Copyright Lawsuit Over Book That Mocks NYT For Glamorizing War

from the fair-use dept

Well, this is disappointing in the extreme. The NY Times is a famous defender of free speech, and has been a key player in many important free speech battles. And now it's filed a ridiculously petty lawsuit claiming copyright infringement over some thumbnail images of NYT's covers in a book (ht Rebecca Tushnet for blogging about this). The book in question is War Is Beautiful: The New York Times Pictorial Guide to the Glamour of Armed Conflict*. The asterisk then reads *(in which the author explains why he no longer reads The New York Times). Here's the cover: As you might have already figured out, the book is an exploration, by author David Shields, of how the NYT has a history of glorifying war with the images it puts on the front page. The book was a bit controversial, and as the Mother Jones link in the previous sentence shows, not only is it somewhat selective in choosing certain images while ignoring others, it also appears to have a very subjective view of what photos are too glamorous for war (some appear to be pretty unglamorous).

Still, Shields and his publisher, Powerhouse Books, appear to have actually gone through the trouble of properly licensing the photographs in question from the NY Times. So that's not what the lawsuit is about. Instead, it's the fact that the the book's "endpapers" (i.e., the inside of the covers) includes a bunch of thumbnail images of the full front page covers whose images are shown later in the book itself: And it's because of those thumbnail images that the NY Times sued:

On or about November 10, 2015, Defendants published the Infringing Work. The book contains prints of numerous photographs copyrighted by NYTC. Defendants properly sought and obtained licenses from NYTC for the limited use of photographs in the Infringing Work.

However, Defendants also printed, without permission, copies of the 64 Front Pages along the inside cover of the Infringing Work. Defendants never sought or obtained a license for the use of the 64 Front Pages.

Yeah. And there's a damn good reason why the didn't seek permission. Because they don't need to. The use of thumbnail images in this sort of work is clearly fair use. Tushnet does a good job rapidly running through the four factors of fair use:

Let's review: Factor one, purpose of the use: images contextualizing the main argument of the book, which involves the overall aim of the Times, not just the photos in isolation but their presentation by the paper. That's classic historicization and commentary: transformative use under Dorling Kindersley. Nature of the work: already published, favoring fair use; news photos and news stories, even if creative, are highly factual, though that doesn't matter much in transformativeness cases. Amount taken: The Times apparently claims a copyright in the layout of the front page, but really the work would have to be that day's print edition, meaning that the book reproduces a fraction of the work, although qualitatively perhaps more important than an average page. But the real kicker, of course, is size. Much more than in Dorling Kindersley, where you could at least read most of the text in the images, there's no way anyone could read the chunks of news stories at issue here. Size cuts decisively in favor of fair use. Market effect: the Times isn't entitled to any market for transformative uses, even if there were some market for unreadable thumbnails.

The "Dorling Kindersley" mentioned in Tushnet's summary is the famed Bill Graham Archivs v. Dorling Kindersley case, which we discussed a decade ago when it first came out and have cited many times since then. The issue is actually remarkably similar. In that case, it was a book about the Grateful Dead, showing a bunch of Grateful Dead concert posters, many of which were owned by the Bill Graham Archives. But the appeals court ruled that these were easily fair use, even when being published in full in a commercial (for profit) book. The reasoning was basically that the images were smaller than the original and were used within a totally different context, being about the history of the band. The same basic issues absolutely apply in this latest case.

And that case was in the 2nd Circuit appeals court, which covers the Southern District of NY where this new lawsuit was filed. In short, the court should be able to easily toss this one out based on the precedent in the poster case.

But, even beyond that, the whole thing seems both petty and silly. The NY Times itself, again, is a regular supporter of free speech and fair use. To be filing this lawsuit seems really against its own long term interests. And, really, as Tushnet notes as well, it appears to have been filed more because the NY Times doesn't like the photo book, since it's expressing a rather negative opinion about the NY Times:

It's hard not to look at this lawsuit as the reaction of a paper embarrassed at having licensed photos for what turned out to be a work of harsh criticism. Whether that criticism is justified or not (and whether licenses were even required, or sought only to avoid a legal battle), the once-Grey Lady looks unappealingly thin-skinned.

Powerhouse Books has filed its response to the lawsuit in which it piles on a rather long list of defenses, including (of course) fair use and free speech, but also questions whether or not some of the NYT's copyrights in those covers are defective or invalid. It also suggests some of the copyrights have been abandoned and some works are in the public domain. And it even tosses in an "unclean hands" defense, which would be potentially interesting if it's ever developed. For the most part, the publishing house appears to be tossing out every possible defense just in case it wants to focus on them later, but, really, fair use should be all it needs to prevail easily here.

Filed Under: copyright, david shields, fair use, ny times, thumbnails, war is beautiful
Companies: ny times, powerhouse books

Roca Labs Issues Bogus DMCA Takedown Notices To Google To Try To Hide PissedConsumer Reviews

from the keep-digging dept

Yes, we're back again with another Roca Labs story already. Lawyer Ron Coleman alerts us to the latest ridiculous legal strategy by Roca Labs: send a DMCA notice to Google to try to hide the negative reviews of Roca Labs on PissedConsumer.com. As you know, Roca Labs is suing PissedConsumer because it hosts some negative reviews of Roca's product (a claimed "alternative" to gastric bypass surgery). The DMCA notice in question claims that thumbnails used on the PissedConsumer reviews violate its copyright, and further, that PissedConsumer violates Roca Labs trademarks by using Roca Labs in the URL for the Roca Labs reviews.

The thumbnail image of Roca Labs copyrighted website that can be seen at the URL below. This thumbnail also contains the image of Roca Lab's product that was photographed by Roca Labs and all copyrights are owned by Roca Labs (original studio image is not online). Furthermore, PissedConsumer.com directly uses the name Roca Labs which is a Registered trademarked property (US Registration No. 4145897). To be more specific, pissedconsumer.com uses our company name in the URL and pages.

Like many of the legal arguments from Roca Labs, these seem to be almost entirely bogus.

First, thumbnail images in this manner are almost certainly fair use -- something Google knows darn well, since it was the key defendant in the case (Perfect 10 v. Google) that established this point. Even outside of that authority, a basic four factors analysis would easily show that using thumbnails for reviews is fair use.

Second, the DMCA is not to be used for trademark claims, as the DMCA does not cover trademark.

Third, even if it did, the URLs are clearly not infringing, as a huge number of rulings concerning "gripe sites" that use the name of the company they're criticizing in their URL have found. When such sites are clearly not the originating company and there's no likelihood of confusion, such URLs are nearly always found to be non-infringing.

Either way, this seems to fit Roca's pattern of doing anything it can possibly do to try to suppress criticism of its product. It really makes you wonder why the company is so worried about letting customers give an opinion about their product, doesn't it?

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, fair use, thumbnails, trademark
Companies: google, pissedconsumer, roca labs

Getty Threatens The Wrong IP Law Firm In Its Copyright Trolling Efforts

from the this-won't-end-well dept

Image licensing giant Getty Images has quite a reputation for being something of a copyright maximalist and occasional copyright troll. The company has been known to blast out threat letters and lawsuits not unlike some more notorious copyright trolls. And that's true even as the company just recently lost a copyright infringement suit in which Getty helped in the infringement. A few months ago, we had told you about Getty starting a new program in which it was making many of its images free to embed, saying that it was "better to compete" that way on the internet, rather than trying to license everything. We actually just tried embedding some Getty images ourselves recently.

However, it appears that this new program has not dampened the company's enthusiasm for copyright trolling. Nor has the recent lawsuit loss convinced Getty to be any more careful in how it goes about that trolling. The company may soon regret sending a troll letter to Florida-based intellectual property law firm Schneider Rothman, claiming that the company had engaged in copyright infringement by posting images to its site and demanding $380 (while threatening a lawsuit). The lawyers at Schneider Rothman know better than to make use of infringing images, so they scoured their site to figure out what the issue was. And they quickly figured out the problem -- and it appears to be with the sloppy way in which Getty sends out these demand letters:

There was a problem, however. We never copied or displayed the Getty image referred to in Getty’s letter.

We looked more closely at what Getty was doing and were shocked to discover what was really going on.

You see, Getty is apparently using an image recognition system to generate its letters to accused infringers. Getty’s system identified a thumbnail image on our website here. Getty matched the thumbnail to an image more than six times the size on Getty’s site.

We are not responsible for the thumbnail. The thumbnail is displayed on our website because we use the Zemanta plug-in for WordPress. Zemanta put it there, something that should have been obvious to Getty.

But Getty did not bother to look. If it had, Getty would have seen that we are simply employing web-feed syndication, a common and generally accepted Internet publishing and search engine optimization practice.

So, instead, the law firm has gone to court, filing for a declaratory judgment that it does not infringe. It's interesting to note that the lawyers didn't just include Getty as a defendant here, but Zemanta as well (seeking, at the very least, indemnification, on the off chance that Zemanta did not actually license the image). They note that Zemanta appears to have properly licensed the image, and to then try to shake down their law firm for using Zemanta's properly licensed use of the image is quite problematic. Plus, since the use is just a thumbnail and (thank you Perfect 10!) the use of thumbnails is fair use, Getty should have quite obviously known that its threat letter and demands for payment were bogus.

The lawyers at Schneider Rothman don't mince words:

Getty’s unfair and deceptive practice has caused actual damages to SRIPLAW by requiring SRIPLAW to expend time and money to bring an action to obtain a declaratory judgment that SRIPLAW did not infringe Getty’s copyright.

Getty’s unfair and deceptive practice has damaged other individuals and businesses similarly situated to SRIPLAW who received letters from Getty that falsely claimed copyright violations and, because these other individuals and businesses lack the technical or legal knowledge and/or funds necessary to defend themselves from Getty false claims, have instead paid extortion money to Getty that Getty was not entitled to.

Unless enjoined, Getty’s unfair and deceptive practice will damage other individuals and businesses who receive letters from Getty that falsely claim copyright violations and demand settlement payments to resolve such false claims.

While it's fun to watch the lawsuits with the small-time copyright trolls like Prenda, it will be interesting to see what happens here, though my guess is that Getty will look to quickly settle this matter...

Filed Under: copyright, copyright trolls, images, shakedown, threats, thumbnails, trolling
Companies: getty, getty images, schneider rothman

Perfect 10 Loses Yet Another Ridiculous Copyright Lawsuit

from the when-will-this-end? dept

We've written about the various and never-ending copyright lawsuits filed by Perfect 10 more than a few times. The company -- which claims to be in the porn magazine business -- seems to focus much more on suing as many internet companies as possible. Especially search engines. It loves to sue and blame search engines. Of course, its record in court is dismal. The company almost always loses and loses big. In some ways, Perfect 10 is actually incredibly useful: it has helped set a number of important precedents against over-aggressive copyright enforcement that have come in handy in other cases. The company has filed dozens of lawsuits, and the fact that it loses so many of them doesn't appear to faze the company. In fact, in one countersuit against Perfect 10, a very strong argument is made that the company is a type of copyright troll, whose business isn't in producing porn, but in suing companies.

One of its latest lawsuits was against Yandex, the most popular search engine in Russia. Yandex is technically a Dutch company, but it has an American subsidiary, Yandex Inc., which does some development for Yandex.ru, the flagship Russian search engine. So it was this American presence that Perfect 10 sued, coming up with its usual twisted list of rationales for why this search engine, mostly based and used in Russia, should somehow be liable for the fact that its users can find images that Perfect 10 holds the copyright on hosted elsewhere. Once again, the case has gone badly for Perfect 10, with the court ruling for summary judgment on a variety of issues in favor of Yandex.

The court not only says that Perfect 10's claims of direct infringement are completely unsupported, but also notes that the company, ridiculously, pointed to one of its other cases, against Amazon, to support this claim. Except, the judge actually read that ruling, and pointed out that it doesn't say what Perfect 10 appears to think it says:

According to Perfect 10, when its images are hosted on servers located in Russia, Yandex violates Perfect 10’s “exclusive display right” because users in the United States could download them. Perfect 10 supplies declarations establishing that a United States user could download Perfect 10 images from a Yandex server in Russia, but no evidence of actual downloads in the United States.

This theory of liability is rejected. Although Perfect 10 cites Amazon in support of its argument, nowhere in that decision did our court of appeals endorse the idea that display of a copyrighted image anywhere in the world creates direct copyright liability in the United States merely because the image could be downloaded from a server abroad by someone in the United States. Such a principle would destroy the concept of territoriality inherent in the Copyright Act for works on the internet.

This kind of thing is repeated throughout. Perfect 10 makes some outlandish claim about how Yandex must be liable, and the court shoots it down for lack of any evidence or precedent to support Perfect 10's claim.

It is not necessary to address the validity of this theory merits. It fails for lack of proof.

Ouch.

While Perfect 10's infamous lawsuit against Google over the thumbnail images in Google Images failed miserably, and was yet another victory for fair use and common sense, Perfect 10 tries again here. It claims that that case doesn't apply to image thumbnails in Yandex's search because Yandex provides direct links to the images, rather than the pages, unlike Google (though, I believe Google recently switched to something like this). The court is unimpressed, noting that the thumbnails are still fair use.

It is true that this integrated composite screen left the impression that the nude model image emanated from Yandex, but this objection fails for three reasons. First, our court of appeals expressly held that in-line linking to a full-size image does not constitute direct infringement. Id. at 1159–60. Without a direct infringement of the full-size image, the fair use defense does come into play — at least as to that full-size image. Second, whether a browser window shows only the thumbnail and the full-size image — instead of the full-size image along with part of the surrounding web page — does not affect whether the use of the thumbnail has been transformed. Third, even if yandex.com’s use of the thumbnail were broadly described as an ‘in-line link connected to a full-size image,’ that use remains highly transformative.

In other words, it's not the link that makes the difference here, but rather the purpose of such an image search engine, which is entirely different than a magazine. In typical Perfect 10 fashion, even when it presents evidence, that evidence is nonsensical and doesn't further its claims, which the court makes clear.

Perfect 10 is arguing that Yandex causes it market harm because Yandex provides a search service that links to third-party infringers. This argument is not substantiated by competent evidence. Perfect 10’s putative support for this contention consists of screen shots from third-party websites showing that links on those websites leading to Perfect 10 images had been viewed approximately 3.8 million times as of December 2012 (which was within the nine-month period that yandex.com servers were located in the United States). Perfect 10 does not, however, provide evidence that any of those views were the result of yandex.com users clicking on thumbnails stored on yandex.com servers in the United States during that nine-month period. The simple fact that the thumbnail links were stored in yandex.com’s index and accessible on the internet does not compel a finding that those links were actually viewed or used.

Again and again, we see Perfect 10 make ridiculous assertions and the judges have to smack them down for it:

Pointing to the alleged loss of its cell phone download business in the ensuing years, Perfect 10 cries foul. Perfect 10 reasons that the market for reduced-size images has dried up since 2007, and Yandex has began providing a thumbnail search service since 2007; ergo, Perfect 10 has been harmed by Yandex. This simple correlation, without more, does not constitute sufficient evidence that Yandex’s use of 40,000 thumbnail images between June 2012 and March 2013 affected Perfect 10’s market. Significantly, in a prior litigation against Google, Perfect 10’s president stated in a sworn declaration that Perfect 10’s cell phone download business “effectively ended in 2006.”

Later, it attempts to show "proof" by having its own staff download images, and the court says that's not proof of direct infringement, because you can't infringe your own copyrights:

Perfect 10 submitted declarations from a private investigator, a web developer, and a graphic designer (Dkt. Nos. 167-28–30). In each one, the declarant states they were asked by Perfect 10 to use various Yandex services to download Perfect 10 images to computers located within the United States. Each declarant confirms that this is “possible” and then explains the process by which they each accomplished the task. These declarations do not change any of the conclusions herein. Perfect 10’s own downloads (and downloads by its agents) conducted as part of its investigation do not constitute direct infringements because Perfect 10 cannot infringe its own copyrights. Nor do any of the declarations rise to the level of expert testimony showing that any particular quantity of such downloads have in fact occurred. This order agrees that it is possible for someone in the United States to download infringing copies of Perfect 10 images using Yandex’s search engine. The summary judgment record does not establish, however, that any such downloading has actually occurred.

Every time we see one of these cases, it makes you wonder about the lawyers that Perfect 10 employs, as they don't seem to be very convincing. However, once again, we get another good ruling that favors fair use for search, secondary liability protections, and another smackdown of Perfect 10. Somehow, I doubt this will be the last time.

Filed Under: copyright, fair use, russia, search, thumbnails
Companies: perfect 10, yandex

Supreme Court Won't Hear Perfect 10's Silly Lawsuit Against Google; Good Ruling Stands

from the phew dept

Perfect 10 has basically made a business out of suing companies claiming copyright abuse. The former publisher of "adult" magazines has gone on a rampage suing tons of companies -- including all the major search engines -- claiming that pointing people to infringing results and showing thumbnails of copyrighted images is infringement itself. For an eye-opening look at Perfect 10, the best read is probably Rapidshare's countersuit from a few years ago, that goes into detail on how the company operates. So far, Perfect 10 has lost almost all of its big cases -- including those against both payment processors and search engines. To be honest, in the long run, Perfect 10 may have done a lot of good in presenting cases that highlight the clear insanity of certain interpretations of copyright law, providing strong and clear precedents from court rulings that have been tremendously useful in other cases.

The lawsuit against Google for showing thumbnails has bounced around for years, with the appeals court saying that showing those thumbnails is fair use -- something those freaking out about Pinterest might want to keep in mind. As it's done before, the Supreme Court has (once again) rejected one of Perfect 10's appeals, meaning that the (strong) lower court ruling stands. Yes, technically, it only applies in the 9th Circuit, but this ruling seems to be one that other courts are willing to cite and use, so hopefully the precedent is considered more widespread. While it would have been nice to have a Supreme Court ruling smacking down Perfect 10 and making such a clear fair use ruling apply across the board, for now we'll be happy with just keeping the good 9th Circuit ruling in place.

Filed Under: copyright, fair use, supreme court, thumbnails
Companies: google, perfect 10

German Court Says Google Image Search Doesn't Infringe On Copyrights

from the well,-phew dept

Over in Germany, a court has ruled that Google does not infringe on the copyright for images when it displays thumbnails of those images in its image search. This is, obviously, quite a good ruling. If it had gone the other way, it would have effectively killed Google's image search. While there are some similarities to the court rulings against Perfect 10 (who has sued various search engines for displaying thumbnails) in the US, there is one major difference. With Perfect 10, the complaints were mainly about search engines indexing images copied/scanned by others. In this German case, the artist was upset that Google showed images that she, herself, put on the website. It seems that this particular point made a strong impression on the judge, who noted that "The plaintiff made the content of her site available without using technical tools to block search engines from finding and displaying her works," and because of that, Google "was allowed to interpret the plaintiff's behavior as agreeing to use her works in image searches." Always nice to see a reasonable ruling.

Filed Under: germany, image search, thumbnails
Companies: google

Perfect 10 Shot Down Again; Will It Finally Realize That Search Engines Aren't Liable For Photos?

from the it's-time-to-give-it-up dept

Porn magazine publisher Perfect 10 has spent tons of money on a long series of fruitless lawsuits against the operators of search engines. The issue is that people with access to Perfect 10 photos had put them online, and (of course) search engines indexed these and included them in their image search features. Perfect 10 insisted that, since these search engines showed thumbnails of the images, the search engines were liable for the infringement. Except that courts keep throwing these cases out. But, that hasn't stopped Perfect 10. However, all it has to show for it is another loss. In its lawsuit against Amazon, for Amazon's A9 search subsidiary, the court has tossed out the lawsuit, pointing out that the DMCA safe harbors clearly protect Amazon, while also highlighting a bunch of pretty basic mistakes that Perfect 10 made in filing the lawsuit (you would think, having filed so many similar lawsuits, that it would get the specifics right). At some point, the company needs to realize that these lawsuits aren't getting it very far.

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, safe harbors, thumbnails
Companies: amazon, perfect 10

Google, Apple, Microsoft Sued Over Patent For Thumbnail Icons

from the what-counts-as-a-patent-these-days dept

As a bit of a non-Christmas gift, it appears that a patent holder, using the infamous Niro Scavone law firm (to whom the name "Patent Troll" was first applied) has sued Google, Apple and Microsoft over a patent that the patent holder appears to believe covers any sort of thumbnail image that shows some of the actual file. You can read the full patent for a system and method for iconic software environment management and then ponder what is allowed to pass as a legitimate patent these days. The patent was first filed in 2001, but the priority date appears to be 1998. Either way, you'd be hard pressed to find anything in the patent that wouldn't have been considered a natural progression in 1998 (or well before that). Nothing like ending the year with yet another ridiculous patent lawsuit.

Filed Under: patents, thumbnails
Companies: apple, google, microsoft, niro scavone

Germany Finds Google Images A Violation Of Copyright Law

from the needing-safe-harbors dept

US courts have recognized, reasonably, that an image search engine like Google's is not infringing on copyrights when it displays thumbnail images as a result of a search. However, it appears that German courts are not quite so understanding. Two new rulings in Germany say that thumbnail images are, in fact, copyright infringement. The German court's reasoning was: "It doesn't matter that thumbnails are much smaller than original pictures and are displayed in a lower resolution. By using photos in thumbnails, no new work is created." While I'm certainly not as familiar with German copyright law as I am with American copyright law, this statement still doesn't make that much sense.

The purpose of copyright law shouldn't just be concerned with whether or not a new work is created, but the purpose of what's being done. So it's difficult to see, for example, how a thumbnail that links to the original can possibly do any harm. If the "artist" behind an image doesn't want it found in Google, don't put it online. If the complaint is that someone else put the image on Google allowing it to be indexed, that's not Google's fault, but whoever put it online. Suing Google makes little sense -- and a judge finding against Google makes even less sense. Google has made it clear it intends to appeal, but it's troubling that a court would rule this way in the first place. It suggests, at the very least, a less than complete understanding of how an image search engine works. It also should raise questions about whether or not this ruling effectively makes any sort of inline hotlinking of images copyright violations as well.

Filed Under: copyright, germany, images, thumbnails