Getty sues Microsoft; Telstra hands over 85,000 records

Stock photo company Getty Images has sued Microsoft for unspecified damages, alleging the software vendor’s new Bing Image Widget tool could cause “incalculable” injury to Getty.

Reuters reported that the lawsuit said the Microsoft tool, released in late August, allows publishers to embed images supplied by the software company’s Bing search engine in their websites.

The Getty lawsuit reportedly claims the tool is a "massive infringement" of copyrighted images, and that it grants access to images regardless if they are copyrighted or not.

"In effect, [the] 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," Reuters quoted the lawsuit as stating.

Getty’s gettyimages.com website allows users to license the use of images for a fee.

According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Getty said that the Microsoft tool allows for Getty’s images to be embedded on commercial websites without permission. The WSJ said the lawsuit is targeting commercial use of Getty photos.

The lawsuit reportedly listed the actual injury to Getty as “incalculable”. Reuters said the company asked a US District Court judge to block the widget immediately and award an unspecified amount of damages.

Instead of drawing from a licensed collection of images, Microsoft “gathers these images by crawling as much of the Internet as it can, copying and indexing every image it finds, without regard to the copyright status of the images and without permission from copyright owners”, Bloomberg reported the lawsuit as stating.

A spokesperson from Microsoft reportedly said the company would "take a close look at Getty's concerns", adding that "as a copyright owner ourselves we think the laws in this area are important".

Getty has its own image embedding tool, but it differs from Microsoft’s in that it’s only available for non-commercial websites and includes photographer attribution, Reuters reported Getty’s general counsel John Lapham as saying.

Since the lawsuit was filed, Microsoft has removed the Bing Image Widget, according to the Financial Times (FT).

“We have temporarily removed the Bing Image Widget beta so we can take time to talk with Getty Images and better understand its concerns,” the FT quoted Microsoft as saying.

Telstra’s 85,000 customer data requests

Telstra received and acted on almost 85,000 law enforcement requests for customer information between 1 July 2013 and 30 June 2014, the company revealed in its recent transparency report.

The figures relate to “activities by law-enforcement agencies as well as regulatory bodies and emergency services organisations” for Telstra’s business in Australia.

“We are required by law to assist Australian Government agencies for defined purposes, such as investigating and solving crimes,” the company said. “We only disclose customer information in accordance with the law and we assess any request for information to ensure it complies with the law.”

A total of 75,448 of these were classed as “Telstra customer information, carriage service records and pre-warrant checks”.

Telstra noted that “customer information” can include a customer’s name, address, service number or date of birth, while “carriage service records” can include call records, SMS records, and internet records.

“Internet session information includes the date, time and duration of internet sessions as well as email logs from BigPond addresses. This does not include URLs. The government has stated URLs are considered to be content and as such they will only request to access this information under a warrant or other court order,” the company said.

A further 2701 were “Warrants for interception or access to stored communications”, while 598 were classed as “Court orders”.

Telstra explained that a warrant is required for an agency to access “the content of a communication”.

“Warrants require us to provide the relevant agency with real-time access to communications as they are carried over our network (eg, a lawful interception). Warrants may also compel us to supply the content of communications after it has been delivered,” the company said.

“Court orders such as subpoenas and coronial requests issued by a court or judge require us to provide customer information and carriage service records. Typically, court orders involve a civil dispute that involves individuals or organisations and related telecommunications data is required by the court to adjudicate on the matter,” Telstra said.

The remaining 6202 requests were classed as “Life-threatening situations and Triple Zero emergency calls”.

The figures do not include lawful requests from national security bodies; the company said it is prohibited from reporting these under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979.

Image courtesy Thibault Martin-Lagardette under CC