Reuters reports that Getty Images claimed in a lawsuit filed in federal court in New York on Thursday that a new Microsoft product that allows website publishers to embed digital photographs on their sites is a “massive infringement” of copyrighted images.
The Bing Image Widget, released on Aug. 22, gives publishers the ability to create a panel on their websites that displays digital images supplied by Microsoft’s Bing search engine, according to the lawsuit. (
See previous story.) Rather than draw from a pool of licensed images, the lawsuit claimed, the product grants access to the billions of images that can be found online, without regard to whether the photos are copyrighted.
“In effect, defendant has turned the entirety of the world’s online images into little more than a vast unlicensed ‘clip art’ collection for the benefit of those website publishers who implement the Bing Image Widget, all without seeking permission from the owners of copyrights in those images,” the lawsuit said.
Getty, which produces and distributes photos, video, music and multimedia products, is asking a judge in U.S. District Court to block the widget immediately and award an unspecified amount of damages. The actual injury to Getty is “incalculable,” according to the lawsuit.
In a statement, a Microsoft spokeswoman said the company would consider whether Getty’s claims had merit. “As a copyright owner ourselves we think the laws in this area are important,” the spokeswoman said in an email. “We’ll take a close look at Getty’s concerns.”
The widget is already in use by websites around the world, the lawsuit said. Getty owns or represents more than 80 million unique digital images, according to the lawsuit.
The case is Getty Images Inc v. Microsoft Corp, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 14-7114.