Google Loses Court Cases In Germany!

According to Bloomberg “Google Inc., owner of the world's most popular Internet-search engine, lost two copyright lawsuits in Germany over displaying photos and artworks as thumbnails in a preview of search results.”

Thomas Horn, who holds the copyrights of some of the images, won a second case, court spokeswoman Sabine Westphalen said in an e-mail:

“It doesn’t matter that thumbnails are much smaller than original pictures and are displayed in a lower resolution,” the court said in its ruling for Bernhard. “By using photos in thumbnails, no new work is created,” that may have justified displaying them without permission.”

Back then, it has been announced on the Google blog that it planned on appealing the case:

“Today we heard that the Belgian court, which last year ruled against us in the Copiepresse case has reaffirmed its original decision. This judgment is clearly disappointing, and we intend to appeal it because we believe that Google.be and Google News are entirely legal and provide great value and critical information to Internet users. However, we are very pleased that the judge agreed Google should be given notice of articles and other material that content owners want removed. As we have in the past, we will honor all requests to remove such materials.”

Google offered a similar response to PaidContent:

"Google is disappointed and intends to appeal the ruling to the German Supreme Court because we believe that services like Google Image Search are entirely legal… Today's decision is very bad for Internet users in Germany, it is a major step backwards for German e-business in general, and it is bad for the thousands of websites who receive valuable traffic through Image Search and similar services."

Germany’s Kay Oberbeck tells GoogleWatchBlog

“Heute dürfte ein schwieriger Tag für die Google Bildersuche sein. Ein Hamburger Gericht urteilte heute, dass Google fünf urheberrechtlich geschützte Comiczeichnungen nicht mehr in den Ergebnissen der Google Bildersuche anzeigen darf.

Damit bestätigte eine Gerichtssprecherin einen Bericht der Computer Bild. In der Begründung des Urteils heißt es, dass Google mit der Anzeige gegen das Urheberrecht verstoße. Bis Ende Oktober kann Google gegen das Urteil Berufung einreichen.”

Translated In English:

“Today should be a difficult day for the Google Images search. Ein Hamburger Gericht urteilte heute, dass Google fünf urheberrechtlich geschützte Comiczeichnungen nicht mehr in den Ergebnissen der Google Bildersuche anzeigen darf. A Hamburg court ruled today that Google five copyrighted cartoon drawings are no longer in the results of Google Image Search may show.

Thus a court spokeswoman confirmed a report of the computer screen. In the reasoning of the Court states that Google with the display against copyright violation. By the end of October, Google may appeal against the verdict to submit.

The cases are 308 O 42/06 and 308 O 248/07 at the Hamburg Regional Court

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