Copyright in the networked world: new rules for images

Two recent court cases have redefined how images may be used on the Internet without copyright infringement. The Bridgeman case is based explicitly on British as well as US law. Kelly v. Arriba rested on the definition of fair use in the US copyright law, and therefore has more limited (or perhaps merely more complex) implications. Before these cases, essentially all photographs since 1923 had the presumption of copyright protection. Now exact copies of public domain art, and perhaps other images that lack originality, are in the public domain. And thumbnail copies of protected images can be regarded under at least some circumstances as being safely within the US fair use guidelines.