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Google to appeal German copyright decisions

German courts rule in favor of content owners in two separate cases Monday, both having to do with display of copyrighted content in thumbnails attached to search results.

Greg Sandoval Former Staff writer
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. Based in New York, Sandoval is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at @sandoCNET.
Greg Sandoval

Google lost two copyright cases in Germany on Monday but the search company reportedly plans to appeal.

A German court ruled that Google violated the copyright of Michael Bernhard by displaying one of his photographs as a preview thumbnail, according to the Bloomberg news service.

Separately, a German court ruled in favor of Thomas Horn, who owns the copyright to some German comics that appeared in Google's search results.

In Bernhard's case, the court ruled "that it doesn't matter that thumbnails are much smaller than the original pictures and are displayed in a lower resolution," Bloomberg reported.

Google told the blog paidContent.org: "We believe that services like Google Image Search are entirely legal. Today's decision is very bad for Internet users in Germany."