Originally Posted by Tempest

Some affiliate rep etc. "telling" you to go ahead and use the stuff does not give you the legal right to use it... In fact, many tell you to go ahead but they really have no legal rights to do so given their licensing agreements for the content. Of course that depends on how they acquired the content but I'm afraid it's true in many, many cases.



I'm afraid you'd be wrong in most cases. Yeah, I've been given access to many sites to download to my hearts content and use the content. But there's no legal backing to it and as I said above, just because they've given you access etc. does not mean you have the legal rights to it.. Programs have been screwing over content producers like this for years.



Again.. You're wrong. Google is like a library, an archive. That sort of thing is covered by fair use.. and since they thumb the images, that's also been argued in the court as being fair use when the courts ruled that it changes the content enough to be a derived work. Idiotic yes, but that's the law.

As I said, I believe "fair use" is too overreaching. My opinion is it should only apply to "free" or non-profit organizations. Or of course things like parody etc. Google is a commercial entity and I feel that fair use shouldn't apply in those instances. But the law is what it is and so arguing about it is useless. The laws needs to be changed.