Microsoft Takes Down Slideshow-Building Tool After Getty Images Lawsuit

jfruh writes Slideshows are an increasingly popular (and, for publishers, lucrative) web content genre. So why not automate their production? Microsoft had a beta tool that was part of Bing Image Search that did just that, but took it down in the face of a lawsuit from Getty Images. It turns out that, unlike a human web content producer, Bing couldn't distinguish between images publishers have the rights to use and images they didn't.

Comments

Re:Did I miss an upgrade?

[fustakrakich]

"Well, I just grabbed this from Google Images because if it's on the Internet it's public domain."

Once released, it is in the public domain. Only government edict states otherwise. Copyright is a privilege, a state license. Nobody has any right to control what happens to divulged information. It's like smoke, once it's out, it's out. If you don't like it, don't start the fire.