>is the results page a possible liability for Google?

That's actually a tricky question and lengthy court battles were held over this in both the US and Europe. In the end, all courts decided that the image result page is questionable when it comes to copyright, but generally covered by fair use. The question is how far fair use goes when people are using the data in derivative work. Google specifically added licensing info about images to further cover their back, but this whole fair use stuff gets really murky when you have automatic scrapers using google images to train AIs who in turn create art for sale eventually. There's a lot of actors in that process that profit indirectly from the provided images. This will probably once again fall back to the courts sooner or later.

Europe has no concept of Fair Use. How did the courts argue there?

Fair use is just a limitation of copyright in case of public interest. Europe has very similar exclusions, even though they are spelled out more concretely. But they don't make this particular issue any less opaque.

Not a lawyer, but from how I understand it the German courts argued that if you don't use any technology to prevent web crawlers from accessing the pictures on your website you need to accept that they are used for preview images (what the Google picture search technically is) as this is a usual use case.

-> here is the actual judgement though: https://juris.bundesgerichtshof.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/do...

> Is the results page a possible liability for Google?

Absolutely. Google previously had a direct link to the full-size image, but it has removed this due to potential legal issues. See [0].

> Is that a violation if the bakery didn't advertise it?

According to Disney, it is. See [1].

> Any privately commissioned art?

Not any art, no. Only that which uses IP/material they do not have a license to.

[0]: https://www.ghacks.net/2018/02/12/say-goodbye-to-the-view-im...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cake_copyright#Copyright_of_ar...

I started to go down the rabbit hole of commissioned fan art. To say that that is a quagmire is an understatement. :(

I mean, isn't most of that "It's trademark infringement, but it is both financially tedious and a PR disaster to go after any but the most prominent cases"

Which is why e.g. Bethesda is not going to slap you for your Mr House or Pip-Boy fanart, but will slap the projects that recreate Fallout 3 in engine X.

The tables turn when it's not just some fans doing it, which takes time and effort. AI generated images can be pumped out by the thousands, and big companies are behind these services. See the problem?

The right to citation is already part of the 1886 Berne Convention, a precedent that enables services like Google images.

The matters of the baker and the privately comissioned art are more complicated. The artist and baker hold copyrigh for their creation, but their products are also derived from copyrighted work, so Disney also has rights here [1]. This is just usually not enforced by copyright holders because who in their right mind would punish free marketing.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work

> Search Google images for Mickey Mouse, is the results page a possible liability for Google?

In 2018[0], didn't Getty force Google to change how Google Images presented results, following a lawsuit in 2016[1]?

[0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages-after... [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/04/google-eu-antitr...