Getty Images has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft for “massive infringement” of copyrighted images with the new Bing Image Widget. Bing Image Widget enhances a web site with the power of Bing Image Search and provides your users with beautiful, configurable image collages and slideshows. The webmaster can customize the Image Widget for his site, he can specify which query to show images for, what size it should be, and more. Below is an example,
I’ve created Image Widget for the term Volcanos.
According to Getty, this tool allows users to use billions of unlicensed images on the internet instead of choosing from a pool of licensed images.
“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,”
Microsoft responded the following regarding this lawsuit,
“As a copyright owner ourselves we think the laws in this area are important, We’ll take a close look at Getty’s concerns.”
Source: Reuters