COPYCENSE

"Google has been brought to court for its use of thumbnails images in its image search engine. Pandia takes a look at Google’s use of thumbnails and cached versions of webpages. Google is a search engine. In return for your search query it gives you a list of web pages that contain content that hopefully is of relevance to your needs — it does not give you the webpage itself.

"Most website owners are very happy with this arrangement. They get visitors in return for letting Google index their pages.

"But what if Google decided to copy the pages and present them on their own server? Wouldn’t that be like hijacking pages? Wouldn’t that be in violation of international copyright law?"

No author. Google’s Copyright Problems. Pandia. Nov. 29, 2004.

See also:
Chris Gaither. Porn Publisher Sues Google Over Images. DetNews.com. Nov. 22, 2004. (Perfect 10 sues Google for infringement related to image caching.)

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