Washington Post – Thursday, May 17, 2007:
A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that Google did not infringe on the copyrights of an adult publishing company by displaying thumbnail images of its nude photographs, handing Internet search companies a victory by allowing the display of such miniature pictures in search results.
The appeals court ruled that the thumbnails fell within a “fair use” exception in copyright law because they play a role in the search process and thus have a function different from that of the original photos.
However,
Yesterday’s ruling was not a complete victory for Google, because the judges directed the lower court to reconsider a separate finding in the company’s favor. The judge had decided that Google was not liable for allowing Internet users to link from its search results to other Web sites that display photographs without copyright permission.
The appeals court opinion said, “There is no dispute that Google substantially assists Web sites to distribute their infringing copies to a worldwide market and assists a worldwide audience of users to access infringing material.” The appeals court instructed the district judge to evaluate whether Google knew that unauthorized copies of Perfect 10’s photos were being made available and failed to take steps to prevent it.
Exactly how is a search engine supposed to work if it cannot provide links to the material? And both Firefox and Internet Explorer let you right-click on any image and save, email, or print it. When are they going to be sued for “assisting a worldwide audience of users to access infringing material”?!
With the new digital world, copyright law is out the window.
Appealing thumbnails makes you wanna click on them.
Google provides all kinds of links to software crack sites. They should be obliged to take those down. Do no evil, indeed!
the link isnt evil, but the person who clicks on said link.
I think we’ll need a lawyer to explain it.
Google’s problem is it’s scaring the bejesus out of Microsoft and Yahoo…..hence the suits by proxy. They will stop when Google is a memory or Microsoft and Yahoo are.
#1,2,3,4,5 If I post a link to your copyrighted opinion (post), am I violating copyright law? Don’t we post links like this all the time? It’s going to be more than a tempest in a teapot.
Perfect 10’s case won support from the motion picture and recording industries, which have often complained that their copyrights are violated by Internet companies.
Whoa, how did that happen?
All preceding msg. content copyright (c) 2007 by BubbaRay
Just to make it recursive and really hurt judges brains, I’ll link to my own copyrighted comment content right here —
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=11475#comments
sad… apparently, this is the new mainstream business model of corporate america…
don’t like the competition?
-can’t beat the competition through innovation?
-don’t like the fact that your rival has a bigger wallet than you?
-just too plain lazy to develop something new?
-sue sue sue..
funny how it seems none of this really mattered 5-6 years ago..
i’d bet my morning coffee corporate lawyers are the sole driving force behind this trend..
someone needs to figure out how to hold the lawyers behind the litigations financially responsible if they lose a lawsuit. -and make’em pay a matching share of the court fees too..
when lawsuits are no longer a win-win scenario for lawyers (esp corporate lawyers) no matter what the outcome, only then will we get a handle on the insane amount of lawsuits clogging the courts in America, -infringement or otherwise.
-soundwash
3 DG
Those Google links to software crack sites are more likely to produce drive-by spyware, endless pop-ups, kiddie porn, trojans, virii and rootkits etcetera on your Windows computer than any actual software cracks.
Now there’s some real evil Google might to try and eliminate but that would make them vigilantes, which is also a type of evil. Google just can’t win for losing. They need to change their motto.
This reminds me of the origional argument about BBS’s Publishing copywrited content. How the small not for profit bbs admin would go to jail for having copyprotected images in his bbs.
Google should not act as a policing service they should just do what they do best and allow the guys with the shiny stars go after the so called bad guys.
Some how locking up a pimple face teen for infridgement is kind of insane.
Blabbering about it on a blog is all fine and dandy, however,
We need influental people like you, Mr. Dvorak to lay down the law to, testify to congress to do’s and don’t of copywrite law because they just don’t have a clue.
It is odd. There would be no Internet if we didn’t link to one another.
the thing that strikes me is how can a 3rd party link not be good for the first party’s copyrighted material? Statistics. Ad sales? The attempts to draw revenue from ads by selling out your visitors as though you owned them is really what is behind this kind of push.
I would have never known of Perfect 10’s site if google had not indexed it, which a third party found and then linked to Perfect 10’s through google, creating this sinkhole of an issue.
The other thing about this that makes me wonder is did the 3rd party link have a better search rank than Perfect 10’s site? I always find it interesting when a 3rd party quoting or linking to original material has a better search rank than the original.
Individual web servers know where their index is. The Internet did not come with a master index, or a facility to register anything centrally except DNS which functions more like chapters in a book. Maybe we need the real index? What ever that might be. Talk about feeling around in the dark, or trying to drive blind.