[whatwg] <img> as thumbnails

ddailey ddailey at zoominternet.net
Wed May 30 09:18:27 PDT 2007


This makes good sense to me. Under US case law stemming from Kelly v Arriba, 
the thumbnail has a rather special legal status 
(http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/copyright/legalthumb.htm ).* I 
believe similar discussions have taken within WIPO (and certainly did under 
CONFU), such that that status may have burbled outward (of the US) a bit.

The use case in which the thumbnail appears at a different site than the 
thing from which it is derived is therefore highly likely, at least in the 
US (or in places that have access to TCP/IP). If my memory is correct, it 
was shortly after the initial decision in Kelly that Google began an "image 
search" capability quite reminiscent of what Ditto/Arriba had been doing. 
The case law would appear to require proper citation to be provided so 
providing a standard typographic mechnism for doing that seems worthwhile.

David (IANAL)

*The situation was muddied a bit by a recent injunction against Google, 
http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-6041724.html -- but upon appeal Google's use 
was upheld http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/316013_amazongoogle17.html 
.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Charles Iliya Krempeaux" <supercanadian at gmail.com>
To: "WHAT Working Group Mailing List" <whatwg at whatwg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 11:21 AM
Subject: [whatwg] <img> as thumbnails


> Hello,
>
> I'd like to suggest the addition of another attribute to <img>.  This
> would be useful in cases where the <img> element is used as a
> thumbnail.
>
> The new attribute is like the "cite" attribute on the <q> element.
>
> I suggest we add an optional "cite" attribute to the <img> element
> too, for when an <img> element is used as a thumbnail.  So for
> example...
>
>  <img src="..." alt="..." cite="http://example.com/video" >
>
> The rational is the be able to specify the source from which the
> thumbnail was made. (To be able to specify the source image or video
> from which the thumbnail was created.)
>
> And to be able to conceptual link together loosely coupled thumbnails
> together.  (To be able to say... all these thumbnails are from the
> same source.)
>
> Use agents could let users get to the URL in the "cite" attribute of
> the <img> element by right clicking on the thumbnail, or something
> like that.
>
>
> See ya
>
> -- 
>    Charles Iliya Krempeaux, B.Sc.
>
>    charles @ reptile.ca
>    supercanadian @ gmail.com
>
>    developer weblog: http://ChangeLog.ca/
>
> 





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