It’s finally happened. In a case with big implications for the booming market in photo-sharing, a publisher is suing popular blogging site Tumblr for copyright infringement.
In a complaint filed Friday in Manhattan, Perfect 10 claims Tumblr failed to remove unauthorized photos posted by its users. The company, which sells nude model photographs through a magazine and website, says Tumblr not only turned a blind eye to copyright infringement but that its staff uploaded images themselves to jumpstart the business.
Perfect 10 President Norm Zada claims the company has sent 6 detailed takedown requests to Tumblr but did not receive any response.
“I’m not sure anyone’s checking that email,” said Zada. “Twenty-five other Internet Service Providers have taken down material that Perfect 10 has identified in our DMCA notices, Tumblr did not.”
The case is significant because lawyers have been waiting for a case to test the legality of popular new image sharing sites like Tumblr and Pinterest. It is also important because of the companies involved.
Tumblr is one of the web’s hottest social sites while Perfect 10 has a long history of fighting in court to control its images. The company sued Google in 2004 for using thumbnail images in its search results. In a famous 2006 decision, a court ruled that the search giant’s use of thumbnails was fair use under copyright law.
A similar fair use ruling is unlikely in the Tumblr case because pictures on the site are typically not thumbnails but full size images.
Full story at Paid Content.
In a complaint filed Friday in Manhattan, Perfect 10 claims Tumblr failed to remove unauthorized photos posted by its users. The company, which sells nude model photographs through a magazine and website, says Tumblr not only turned a blind eye to copyright infringement but that its staff uploaded images themselves to jumpstart the business.Perfect 10 President Norm Zada claims the company has sent 6 detailed takedown requests to Tumblr but did not receive any response.
“I’m not sure anyone’s checking that email,” said Zada. “Twenty-five other Internet Service Providers have taken down material that Perfect 10 has identified in our DMCA notices, Tumblr did not.”
The case is significant because lawyers have been waiting for a case to test the legality of popular new image sharing sites like Tumblr and Pinterest. It is also important because of the companies involved.
Tumblr is one of the web’s hottest social sites while Perfect 10 has a long history of fighting in court to control its images. The company sued Google in 2004 for using thumbnail images in its search results. In a famous 2006 decision, a court ruled that the search giant’s use of thumbnails was fair use under copyright law.
A similar fair use ruling is unlikely in the Tumblr case because pictures on the site are typically not thumbnails but full size images.
Full story at Paid Content.
1 comment:
People need to accept that anything that they put on the web is inevitably going to be treated as a free-share file by some other people regardless of what accompanying restrictions/prohibitions may be cited - and that trying to police it will use up a lot of time to little effect.
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