Microsoft Bing or Windows Spotlight daily picture as wallpaper?

[Patrice Coni]

Dear debian-legal people,

I develop a software that downloads the daily picture from Bing or
Windows Spotlight and set it as wallpaper on a X11 desktop environment.
Bing or Windows Spotlight are features of Microsoft.
The daily picture is obtained from www.bing.com or from arc.msn.com.
Each image appears to be copyrighted by its owner.

The software (DailyDesktopWallpaperPlus) not only downloads the picture,
but the copyright and description of each image is stored in a local
database.
The images are saved and can be reused later.
Is this legal? What do I have to consider?

My goal is that the software to be included by Debian.

Link: https://github.com/pgc062020/DailyDesktopWallpaperPlus

Thanks in advance.

Best regards

Patrice Coni

[Daniel Hakimi]

Technically, one could very easily argue this is illegal as you're reproducing copies of the images without permission. Obviously, this sort of thing is very standard on a lot of the internet, and most people know the risks of putting their photos up online. But there are also copyright trolls out there who love sending companies demand letters over small, accidental infringements.

It's theoretically possible for companies distributing Debian to be sued for contributory infringement in a case like this. Very unlikely, but *possible*. Especially if the program downloads the same images for all users, because then I can know for sure that some huge swath of Debian users have downloaded my photo. The program also creates an easily discoverable directory of evidence, which might make things worse if a lawsuit ever gets going.

Would you be able to write a version that only downloads images with a known license on a certain list of good licenses, or images known to be in the public domain?

[Eloi]

El 9/10/22 a les 13:08, Patrice Coni ha escrit:

There could be two possible scenarios: either the images are free for
use even for commercial purposes (so Microsoft can use them without
asking for further permission) or Microsoft did seek and got explicit
permission from the picture copyright owner to display them on their
feature.

In the first scenario, Debian probably could use them as well; in the
second, probably not. Note the "probably" on both cases.

Also, this check should be done for each and every picture going to be
displayed, present and future. If Microsoft is using today a picture for
which needs not an explicit grant, we have no warranty at all that
tomorrow it will be the same.

IANAL neither DD but I would be very uncomfortable with this software
even as an end user where I would end having copyrighted images locally
stored for which I could be held personally liable.