Court: Image links violate copyrights

Search engines can display low-quality thumbnail copies of an image but cannot post full-size images through inline linking without violating copyrights, a federal appeals court has ruled.

A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said search engine company Ditto.com, formerly Arriba Soft, violated the copyrights of professional photographer Les Kelly by making his photos available through inline linking, which makes images from a different Web site appear as if they are part of the Web page a person is looking at. The judges sent the case back to a lower court to determine damages.