Many websites incorporate thumbnails which are miniature versions of copyrighted works. In the United States, the legality of thumbnails goes through the four factors of the copyright fair use analysis. I discuss the fair use four factors in the posting, Making Fair Use a Little Less Fickle.
Most United States courts have ruled that using thumbnails qualifies as a fair use if the use is transformative. Your use of a copyrighted work is transformative if your use of the work is creatively different from the way in which the copyright owner used the work. For example, United States courts have ruled that a search engine’s use of thumbnails to create a pictorial index of webpages is a transformative use that qualifies as a fair use.
Evidently, some German courts think differently. In two separate cases, German courts recently ruled that Google’s use of thumbnails was infringing. In one case, Google’s thumbnail preview of a picture was found to violate the copyright of photographer Michael Bernhard. In another case, Google’s display of comics in its search results was found to violate the copyright of the comic creator. Google has the opportunity to appeal both rulings.
Being in a global medium such as the internet potentially exposes one to the laws of more than one country. And that can make life difficult for website owners without the resources to fight international lawsuits. One such example is the International Music Score Library Project, a Canadian-based website which shut down over inconsistent views of Canadian and Austrian law regarding what’s in the public domain.