Getty Images Sues Microsoft Over "Bing Image Widget"

[engine]

An image search going too far for Getty Images.

A new Microsoft Corp product that allows website publishers to embed digital photographs on their sites is a "massive infringement" of copyrighted images, Getty Images Inc [GETTY.UL] claimed in a lawsuit filed in federal court in New York on Thursday.

The "Bing Image Widget," released on Aug. 22, gives publishers the ability to create a panel on their websites that displays digital images supplied by Microsoft's Bing search engine, according to the lawsuit.

Rather than draw from a pool of licensed images, the lawsuit claimed, the product grants access to the billions of images that can be found online, without regard to whether the photos are copyrighted.Getty Images Sues Microsoft Over "Bing Image Widget" [reuters.com]

"In effect, defendant has turned the entirety of the world's online images into little more than a vast, unlicensed 'clip art' collection for the benefit of those website publishers who implement the Bing Image Widget, all without seeking permission from the owners of copyrights in those images," the lawsuit said.

[Marshall]

While the suit may have merit, IMHO, Getty believes they own every image in the world.

Marshall

[Kendo]

Ah, but posting a picture on a web page does not entitle search engines to profit by disclosing its whereabouts, especially when considering how the search engines find those links, ie: on web pages or sites that were never submitted for search and therefore uninvited.

While some site owners have problems getting their sites indexed and others have problems with pages/content still in indexes even if deleted months/years before, one only has to type a URL into Google for that page to be indexed automatically. Notice how some browsers convert a 404 to a search request these days?

I doubt if they will win the case. If they do win then it could be a precedent to strengthen all arguments against plagiarism.