Google Loses Lawsuits Over Copyrighted Images
Posted: Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Internet search engine Google has lost two lawsuits in Germany over the use of copyrighted images that have been used to create thumbnail images for its image search engine. Courts in Germany have ruled that the use of the images to create thumbnails is a violation of copyright laws.
In the United States many courts have already dealt with this issue, and it was largely decided by US courts that the creation of thumbnail images from copyrighted images by Google was a fair use of the copyrighted images.
In one of the rulings the Regional Court of Hamburg said: “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.”
An official from Google stated: “Today’s decision is very bad for Internet users in Germany, it is a major step backwards for German e-business in general, and it is bad for the thousands of websites who receive valuable traffic through Image Search and similar services.”
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