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Google Wins Nude Thumbnail Legal Battle
eldavojohn writes "Google is currently fighting many fronts in its ability to show small images returned in a search from websites. Most recently, Google won the case against them in which they were displaying nude thumbnails of a photographer's work from his site. Prior to this, Google was barred from displaying copyrighted content, even when linking it to the site (owner) from its search results. The verdict: "Saying the District Court erred, the San Francisco-based appeals court ruled that Google could legally display those images under the fair use doctrine of copyright law." This sets a rather hefty precedence in a search engine's ability to blindly serve content safely under fair use."
If you don't want your page to show up in google, send the robot home. They actually honor that, ya know.
If you don't know how to use it, well, then maybe you should not display your content on the internet. It will survive without.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Is this really any different from a legal standpoint?
Yes, because now a court has ruled that it is legal.
If Google gets fair use, others will too. This helps to chip away at the damage the DMCA (and a few very uneducated court rulings) has done.
this appears to be a case of fair use over copyrighted work. So why's the nudity a part of the article headline?
Main difference is the protection for text and video is the ability to fairly take a portion of the entire copyrighted piece. With a still photo, even though it's a smaller version, it's still the ENTIRE image, which on the surface seems to go against the definition of "All Rights Reserved". The question a court has to consider, is if that thumbnail, that smaller version, in any way detracts or takes away anything from the original (and not just commercial, there's an artistic value to it as well.) For this case, I think specifically as a search engine function, the court says meh, you're fine.
In fact, as a test of Fair Use, it isn't clear if the wholesale simple shrinking of an image to smaller size is in itself fair game, or if it is just within the specific context of a search engine.
Makes me wonder what this means for the Google Books thingamajig.
A thumbnail doesn't give you the full detail of a full-sized image. Try to scale it up and you get pixellated garbage.
np, Perfect 10 just has to send DMCA removal requests to the original sites...which they can easily find with Google image search.
What I'm wondering is why go after the intermediate? Google's providing them a wealth of information on infringers. Shut down the middleman you lose your path to the top. (bottom?) Seems to me Perfect 10's just (a) lazy and (b) looking for a quick buck. Go after the REAL infringers already.
It's not the detail that matters, it's the entire image that's is in view, not a corner or portion. The court didn't define "thumbnail", either. So thumbnail to one person is small viable image to another. If the original is 3000 pixels wide, is a 400 pixels enough of a reduction to be considered "thumbnail"?
For certain uses, having full resolution doesn't matter. A small version of a porn image, meant only for online viewing to begin with, may be enough to, um, function, for the viewer, degrading the value of the original. I'm not saying I agree with this, I'm just saying there's a difference between taking a paragraph from an entire novel, or a single frame from an episode of The Daily Show, and showing an image in its entirety, except smaller.
Example would be, say, the first exclusive pics of Angelina Jolie's baby. Million dollar shots. Or the first image ever of the iPhone. Priceless. But posting a tiny version online, it would still "reveal" everything that the larger version would, taking that right of publishing/profit/secrecy away from the owner. On a cellphone, a way that many many millions of people are viewing images now, a "thumbnail" is plenty big enough to see all they need to see.
I don't need to print a six foot framed print to hang over my couch. I just want to see Britney nekkid. So there's a difference.
What I'm wondering is why go after the intermediate? That's the BILLION DOLLAR question.
You can't take the sky from me...