A federal appeals court ruled that Google can legally show thumbnail-sized versions of copyrighted images in its search results. In a case that may predict the course of the Google Book Search suits by authors and publishers, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction against Google that stemmed from a copyright infringement suit filed by adult entertainment company Perfect 10.

Perfect 10 originally filed the suit against Google and Amazon.com in U.S. District Court, claiming the two violated its copyright by showing small versions of Perfect 10’s images in search engine results. But the 3-judge court said that Google’s use was transformative and constituted Fair Use.

On a second issue, the court remanded the case to the lower court to evaluate whether Google was a contributory infringer by not doing enough to avoid including links in its search results to sites where infringers had posted full-sized copies of Perfect 10’s images.

An appeal by either party would put the case, and many of Google’s practices, before the Supreme Court even before the Google Book Search suits are heard in lower courts.

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When the Stanford University library recently announced the launch of a new Copyright Renewal Database, at least one prominent publication said it would help solve the thorny orphan works problem. If only it were so simple.

Stanford’s new database indicates whether a book published in the United States between 1923 and 1963 is still protected by copyright in the U.S. Books published between those dates needed to have been registered for copyright and to have had their registrations renewed. If they didn’t, they fell into the public domain. Earlier books are generally in the public domain already, while those published in 1964 and later were granted extended rights by Congress. Stanford’s is the first complete, online database of renewals received by the U.S. Copyright Office between 1950 and 1993. One issue for orphan works is that, for those books whose registration renewals extended their copyright terms, the database doesn’t necessarily identify the current rightsholder, who could be a descendent or a corporate successor to the original rightsholder.

“The database only tells you if the work was renewed,” says Mimi Calteri, executive assistant to Stanford’s head of libraries. “You still have the business of tracking down the copyright holder. It will tell you who renewed the copyright, and that could be a lead, but it doesn’t mean that the person who had the copyright hasn’t transferred it on.”

Calteri said Stanford is considering additional functionality to the database in the future to allow people who have copyright information about a particular book to add that information to the database records.

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Almost from the day we completed the last redesign of copyright.com in 2004, we’ve been compiling a list of improvements, additions and features that would make the site even more useful. Many of those ideas came from you—through focus groups, customer meetings, usability studies and calls and emails.

The page you’re looking at right now reflects many of your suggestions. You asked us for more educational resources, more timely news and information about copyright and more flexible delivery options. You asked us to help you stay current on the issues and debates that are worthy of your attention. And you asked us to do it fairly and with candor.

The result is Copyright Central. It’s a place you can come to catch up on the latest copyright news, or to find out what blogs are catching people’s attention. Our resource section contains online tutorials and other tools to help answer your questions. You’ll find reports and reprints of articles as well as links to additional resources on the Web. In the © News section below, we’ll post headlines and links to timely articles that we think you’ll find interesting and useful. We hope you’ll bookmark this page and check in from time to time.

Perhaps the biggest change in Copyright Central is the introduction of our own blog, On Copyright, which replaces our traditional newsletter program. In a survey of newsletter subscribers late last year our readers said they wanted to learn about copyright-related news as it happened—without regard to a fixed publication schedule. In addition to that immediacy, they asked us to deliver the information in smaller bites, with links to other coverage or original sources. In short, they asked us for a blog.

As with any blog, On Copyright will evolve over time as it matures and finds its voice. Getting it right takes a little time, and we’ll try not to overwhelm you with new postings. To make it even easier, you’ll be able to choose between email and RSS delivery.

Though we’ll be posting items starting this week, On Copyright officially will go live with full functionality in a few weeks. When it does, we will notify our current newsletter subscribers by email. To subscribe now for email delivery, go to On Copyright and select “Email sign-up”. When we launch, you can switch to an RSS feed if you prefer that format.

We hope you’ll like what we’ve done with Copyright Central and the rest of the site. We’d love to hear if you do—or even if you think we missed the mark. Your feedback and suggestions will continue to shape the development and evolution of the entire site. Just email us at sitesuggestions@copyright.com.

Thanks for checking in, and we hope you’ll visit often.

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