German court: Google Image Search violates copyright
Although many [ Americans - approx. translators ] complain about the severity of intellectual property laws in the United States; European courts once again prove that things could be much worse. The last reminder came from Germany, and concerns the right to create thumbnails from images. A German court decided that this violates the copyright of the creator of the image.
Google has long been unlucky in European courts. Last year, Google lost in court to the Belgian Newspaper Association, which claimed that news quotes used in Google News search results violated its copyright law. The content of the Belgian newspapers has disappeared from Google News, but Google does not give up - the appeal is now being considered in court.
In the latter case, Google was found guilty of violating the copyright of a photographer and comic book artist. According to materials from Bloomberg News, Google lost both of these cases, the court ruled that changing the image "cannot be recognized as the creation of an independent work," thus putting the creation of thumbnails outside the law.
Another curious moment. Although the authors of the protected works can independently prohibit access to the necessary images for search robots, the court recognized that the search system is obliged to independently exclude in any way copyrighted works. Since it is impossible to do this automatically now, a court decision will most likely lead to radical changes in the German version of Google Image Search.
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It is unlikely that Google will be the only one facing this attitude. A similar case was recently initiated by the Perfect 10 website - this time against Microsoft. In the meantime, the already mentioned Belgian newspapers are suing again - this time against the European Union . It seems that we should expect sanctions against other image search services in Germany.
Google has long been unlucky in European courts. Last year, Google lost in court to the Belgian Newspaper Association, which claimed that news quotes used in Google News search results violated its copyright law. The content of the Belgian newspapers has disappeared from Google News, but Google does not give up - the appeal is now being considered in court.
In the latter case, Google was found guilty of violating the copyright of a photographer and comic book artist. According to materials from Bloomberg News, Google lost both of these cases, the court ruled that changing the image "cannot be recognized as the creation of an independent work," thus putting the creation of thumbnails outside the law.
Another curious moment. Although the authors of the protected works can independently prohibit access to the necessary images for search robots, the court recognized that the search system is obliged to independently exclude in any way copyrighted works. Since it is impossible to do this automatically now, a court decision will most likely lead to radical changes in the German version of Google Image Search.
')
It is unlikely that Google will be the only one facing this attitude. A similar case was recently initiated by the Perfect 10 website - this time against Microsoft. In the meantime, the already mentioned Belgian newspapers are suing again - this time against the European Union . It seems that we should expect sanctions against other image search services in Germany.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/42357/
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