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Google with time has started to appear more mortal with time; as it suffers a few setbacks; be it the Yahoo/Google deal, its Street View facing opposition in Germany to the present loss it suffered facing copyright violation. The loss comes at the hands of cases against Google in Germany that point at indexing an artist’s work and putting up a photographer’s photo as a thumbnail in its image search as reported.
The culprit has been a part of such violations for long and it has been pretty casual about such cases. The decision that has been made against Google roots from similar grounds; using work from others without permission to display on its services.
The court giving out its decision against Google said:
It doesn’t matter that thumbnails are much smaller than original pictures and are displayed in a lower resolution.
Now if this is the case then there are billions off images there already and a countless of them might very well be violating copyright laws. The Image Search provides valuable traffic to a countless sites and it does give credit to the owner by providing a link to the source. Also it generates images from across the web for the search results it is highly possible that it can index it from elsewhere.
In its response to the court’s decision, Google has decided to file an appeal stating:
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.
Google’s Street View might be one thing that I can be against but seriously, this one baffles me. If this is right as the court thinks then every other image that it fetches from across the web must be removed as well. And for God’s sake it’s a search engine and it’s not using all this to generate something in its own name.
I beg to differ with you and your opinion here. If you really understood how the major image search engines work, you would clearly see how they routinely violate the copyright laws of this country. If you want the laws changed, write your Senator or Congressman/woman.
Until that happens, Google, Microsoft, Baidu, and Yahoo should have to play by the exact same set of rules and regulations (and laws) as everyone else out here in this free society.
I congratulate the German judges … and those in Belgium and France, as well. They are obviously not being bribed by the technology industry lobbyists who have penetrated all aspects of our government and our legal/court system in this country.
Give your readers a break. The images posted on image search engine servers are used by end users day in and day out. Millions and millions of them. For both online and print applications. They are not simply used for “indexing”. Do you really believe that nonsense?
You cannot even transmit graphics with much larger size or detail over many mobile networks. Only a graphics moron would conclude otherwise.
Use one of the image search engines and discover this for yourself. You might be surprised. In fact, why don’t you e-mail some of the so-called indexed images to your friends while you’re at it. I am sure they have web sites that need new web resolution images as well.
I have researched and documented this issue for four solid years now. I know these laws better than anyone else I know. The German courts got this one exactly right … and it is about damn time.
Professional graphic artists and photographers have become increasingly more vocal and are sick and tired of hearing this kind of whining come out of Silicon Valley. These technologists don’t think they get to establish their own set of laws and rules in this country … at the detriment of all others … or do they?
You comments here are welcome. The copyright pendulum has finally begun to swing the right way in this country (and abroad) and we have well-reasoned judges in other countries to thank for bringing up our internal levels of intelligent analysis and competence.
Copyright defense lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians have ruled for the past eight years in this country. It’s now the time for ordinary hard-working people and our creative communities to have their turn.
George Riddick
Chairman/CEO
Imageline, Inc.
griddick@imageline2.com
George.Your reply with thinly veiled personal attacks and arrogant “If you knew what I knew then you wouldn’t be saying that” (which you then don’t go on to reveal) is indication of your painfully weak argument. You produce no evidence of anything beyond indexing of low resolution images by the search engines. People will always send images to their friends via email whether they find them via a search engine or not. People will always plagiarize and infringe copyrights on images whether they find them via search engine or not.
Advancing technology is the future and it is up to the so called creative industry to adapt to the way the world is going. People want and need image search so why not get involved and be a part of what people want instead of standing up to it and in the end getting left behind in the dirt (where you seem to belong right now)