US Case Note: Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corporation (July 7, 2003), No. 00-55521 (9th Circuit, 2003)

A photographer, Leslie Kelly, had sued Arriba Soft Corporation (now Ditto.com) for infringing his copyrights in photographs when Arriba made thumbnails of his pictures and stored them in a public image search engine. When the thumbnails were clicked, the user was shown the full-sized versions of the pictures. The federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's ruling that making these thumbnail copies of images for the search engine was 'fair use'. However, the appellate court held that the linking to the full-sized images, originally deemed to be fair use by the court below, was not suitable for summary judgment, and remanded the case for further consideration on that issue. For the full text, see: 9th Circuit Decision. Summary by: James Kosa