Legal Issues

Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick




Google News Thumbnails Illegal In Germany

from the no-fair-use-here dept

GrepLaw points to the news that the thumbnail images that often accompany stories on Google News have been found to violate copyright law in that country. Apparently, thumbnail images aren't considered fair use. I imagine it wouldn't be all that difficult for Google to simply remove images from their German news site - but it's another example of bad copyright law. These images only help to drive more traffic to the sites. The publisher protesting using thumbnail images in this way are shooting themselves in the foot.

3 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

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  1. Mar 29th, 2004 @ 11:01pm

    Actually it smacks of sour grapes.

    I'll wager a guess.
    Google's news system works more-or-less on a 'first come, first serve' basis in that the sites that publish the news first tend to appear at the main fray, with the rest listed below. Of course this is at the discretion of Google's search patterns, so even if your site is first, but the search doesn't scan you first, you don't get that spot.
    I doubt its the guys at the top complaining, but instead those who don't get the top spots. Sound a bit like that fellow who complained that Google's listings destroyed his business...

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. Mar 29th, 2004 @ 11:32pm

    Who said it is the publisher of the newspaper comp

    by Anonymous Coward

    It must be the owner of the picture.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. Mar 30th, 2004 @ 9:59am

    Re: Who said it is the publisher of the newspaper

    by Anonymous Coward



    Those Germans, Rules is Rules weather they make sense or not.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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