Last year I was curious about how the Weblogs Inc network of blogs (Engadget, Autoblog, Luxist, etc.) recieved permission to use other people’s images on every one of thousands of blog posts. Certainly they did not have time to request and wait for permission from every single web site?

Looking for an answer I sent an e-mail to Shawn Gold at Weblogs Inc (who left AOL in February of this year.):

“I’m curious about the legal issues with the images used in Weblogs Inc’s blogs. I notice that nearly all images are hyperlinked to their original source. Do the bloggers ask permission to use each individual photo, or is there some kind of fair use issue going on here?”

The reply from Shawn came back 2 days later:

“Hi Andrew;
There are fair use issues with images…we do it like google, use a smaller image than the origianl and link to the original source.Don’t have the time to ask permission for every image. You can google fair use on images or even search googles image practices and you will get the skinny.”

I was correct, they were using the fair use defense.

Far from being a lawyer, I am not 100% certain this would hold up. First of all, the images are big. Google Images max out at 124 pixels wide, Google News at like 79 pixels. These are thumbnails. Weblog Inc’s 425 pixels wide might be a bit of a “stretch” for fair use… considering that image fair use has been called in to question over mobile right use, things are even greyer.

Typically companies like Weblogs Inc get away with this because #1 with the exception of very dumb companies, everyone loves free traffic, especially from a huge and influencial site like Endgadget. #2, very few companies register the copyright of an images, which costs $30 a pop. Thats right, you can register the copyright of an entire book for the same cost as a single photograph.

Considering many photographers would be lucky to average $30 for every image they take, registering the copyright would send them in to bankruptcy. If the copyright is not registered, infringement damages are greatly reduced meaning a hiring a lawyer results in an even bigger loss.

I am not writing this to attack Weblogs Inc or anyone at AOL. Rather, that the legal system is a complete mess. These issues create a minefield for internet publishers who want to play the whitehat game without hiring very expensive lawyers.