Ruling in Perfect 10 v.Google

Photo totally unrelated to the story today. I've been away on a variety of trips recently. In order to explain the gaps in the blawg postings at the same time as making good use of my snaps I will be adding travel shots to the next few postings!

Bit late on this one but back in May the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the US has upheld Google's appeal against claims of infringement of copyright for creating and displaying thumbnail images. The court also ruled that when Google frames and links to other sites, it does not violate their copyright. If you’ve got time for 48 pages take a look at the full decision. You can also read Jason Schultz’s views about the decision on the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Deeplinks blog. Remember that this is a U.S. case which talks about ‘fair use’. ‘Fair dealing’ (its UK counterpart) is much narrower.

This is one of the cases mentioned in a DCC legal research paper currently in progress that discusses, amongst other things, the practice and legality of framing and in-lining. I’ll say a bit more about that once it’s published.