mitko wrote:
I'm not a lawyer actually, but IMHO that's quite thin line between these terms (of course if you are not directly selling stolen pictures). E.g. in wiki there is an article re to US laws which as i understand allow distribution of copyrighted data in some cases: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
This particular piece from the source quoted above makes interesting reading:
"Fair use on the Internet
A US court case in 2003, Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corporation, provides and develops the relationship between thumbnails, inline linking and fair use. In the lower District Court case on a motion for summary judgment, Arriba Soft was found to have violated copyright without a fair use defense in the use of thumbnail pictures and inline linking from Kelly's website in Arriba's image search engine. That decision was appealed and contested by Internet rights activists such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who argued that it is clearly covered under fair use.
On appeal, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found in favor of the defendant. In reaching its decision, the court utilized the above-mentioned four-factor analysis. First, it found the purpose of creating the thumbnail images as previews to be sufficiently transformative, noting that they were not meant to be viewed at high resolution like the original artwork was. Second, the fact that the photographs had already been published diminished the significance of their nature as creative works. Third, although normally making a "full" replication of a copyrighted work may appear to violate copyright, here it was found to be reasonable and necessary in light of the intended use. Lastly, the court found that the market for the original photographs would not be substantially diminished by the creation of the thumbnails. To the contrary, the thumbnail searches could increase exposure of the originals. In looking at all these factors as a whole, the court found that the thumbnails were fair use and remanded the case to the lower court for trial after issuing a revised opinion on July 7, 2003. The remaining issues were resolved with a default judgment after Arriba Soft had experienced significant financial problems and failed to reach a negotiated settlement."
To avoid the minefield that is Copyright Legislation - the best way to minimise any claims is for the hosting web site (say for instance the BBC News site as an example) to include a thumbnail on their page with a link to the original photographs, i.e. on the Shipspotting web site.
