Group,
Below is a response I've gotten from Lycos after firing off a 'soft'
complaint about their image harvesting practices...
Looks like they've been through this and have some sort of form letter ready
for types like us.
Regards,
Jeff
> From: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Reply-To: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 10:39:43 -0800
> To: Jeff Tsai <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: Lycos Photocenter (KMM6850544C0KM)
>
> Hello,
>
> Thank you for writing to Lycos.
>
> Lycos maintains a catalog of Internet sites, analogous to the white
> pages of a phone book. We provide this catalog to the public as a free
> information service and research tool. Due to the size and nature of
> our catalog, it's not possible for us to remove individual results. As
> with any Web search, Lycos claims no right to these files and directs
> our users to contact the administrator of the Web site in question for
> more information on the use of copyrighted photographs.
>
> The Lycos Multimedia Search engine employs spiders that scour the
> internet for rich media content, much like a regular search engine
> would. My understanding is that because we are not publishing your
> photos, rather we link off to your site, this is not an illegal
> practice. You can find more information at:
>
> http://www.lycos.com/lycosinc/legal.html
>
> To prohibit spiders from any server from accessing your site, you must
> make use of the robots.txt standard. What is robots.txt? This small text
> file is like a traffic cop that tells our software which parts of your
> site can be examined and indexed. Ask your Web hosting company if your
> site already employs this file. If not, it is a fairly simple matter to
> create your own robots.txt file.
>
> You will find further information about robots.txt files at the
> following sites.
>
> http://www.lycos.com/help/robots.html
>
> http://www.kollar.com/robots.html
>
> You may also wish to read the following article regarding an image
> copyright case:
>
>
> Ditto.com wins image copyright case
> Ruling may have sweeping implications for search engines
> By Elliot Zaret <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> MSNBC
>
> SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 17 - In a case that may have sweeping implications
> for search engines of all kinds, a federal judge in California has ruled
> that a "visual search engine" did not violate copyright laws by
> collecting thumbnail images of photographs from the Web and displaying
> them on its site. The necessity of searching the Internet outweighed any
> other factor in determining whether a copyright was violated, the judge
> said.
>
> IN JANUARY, a California photographer sued Ditto.com
> <http://www.ditto.com>, then known as the Arriba Vista Image Searcher,
> for violating her copyright by collecting and displaying 35 of her
> copyrighted images on its site as search results. The Ditto search
> engine works by "spidering" the Web - having a computer program collect
> some two million images from any site on the Internet it can find them -
> then shrinking each image down to a thumbnail image that is displayed in
> the search result. The photographer argued that an image is an image and
> displaying her copyrighted photographs without her permission - and
> making money in the process - was effectively stealing. The U.S.
> District Court judge in Santa Ana, Calif. ruled that Ditto wasn't
> stealing the images. But the 15-page decision, handed down late
> Thursday, was somewhat more complicated - with the judge effectively
> giving a split decision on many of the relevant issues. However the
> judge said that the crucial role search engines serve for users of the
> Internet outweighs the other factors and makes Ditto's thumbnails "fair
> use" of the images. "(The photographer's) images were swept up along
> with two million others available on the Internet, as part of (Ditto's)
> efforts to provide its users with a better way to find images on the
> Internet," wrote the judge. "(Ditto's) purposes were and are inherently
> transformative, even if its realization of those purposes was at times
> imperfect. Where, as here, a new use and new technology are evolving,
> the broad transformative purpose of the use weighs more heavily than the
> inevitable flaws in its early stages of development." The judge also
> said that thumbnails themselves - though an exact replica of the
> original photos - had to be considered different from the originals
> because they served an entirely different purpose. "The character of the
> thumbnail index is not esthetic, but functional; it's purpose is not to
> be artistic, but to be comprehensive," the judge wrote. Ditto.com's
> attorney Judy Jennison, who heads the Silicon Valley Intellectual
> Property Litigation Practice of Perkins Coie, said the decision
> validates the importance of navigation tools like search engines on the
> Internet. "Generally speaking, the court has realized that the Internet
> is important to all of us, and helping people navigate the Internet is
> an important thing," said Jennison. "It's clearly the right decision for
> the Internet."
>
> SWEEPING RAMIFICATIONS?
>
> Rich Gray, an intellectual property attorney and founding partner of
> Outside General Counsel Silicon Valley, said the case may have sweeping
> ramifications for the industry. "It's very pro-fair use in the Internet
> context, which has implications in all kinds of things ranging from
> search engines to deep linking to framing," Gray said. For instance, the
> case seems to support the right of a music search engine to play clips
> of songs sold on MP3 sites, Gray said. And the case may come into play
> in a case filed this week by online auction giant eBay, which claimed
> that Bidder's Edge effectively stole eBay information by searching eBay
> listings with its auction search engine. However Gray warned that it's
> only one ruling in the nascent field of law and cyberspace - and until
> more cases are decided, every case will be looked at differently. "It
> wouldn't shock me if a similar case was brought in a different district
> court and a different result happened," Gray said. "This could have gone
> either way."
>
>
> Farah
>
> Lycos Customer Service
> ----------------------
> Lycos.com - Part of the Lycos Network
> http://www.lycos.com
>
>
> Original message follows:
> -------------------------
>
>
> Message from JeffTsai:
> I was alerted to the possible presence of my photos on the Lycos site.
> As you can see from the URL below, the first four or so pictures that
> come up on the list are those located at http://pug.komkon.org. However,
> Lycos has arbitrarily taken the artwork I've submitted to an authorized
> site and altered the work without explicitly asking permission from the
> owner (myself).
>
> Linking is one issue, but creating unauthorized duplicates is a breach
> of copyright.
>
> Please remove references as soon as possible.
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