That decision wasn't about copyrighted photos. It was about Google creating a books search index, which was allowed as fair use - just like their scanning of books for previews is. That's an entirely different situation than if Google had trained an AI to write books for sale, that contained snippets or passages from the digitized books.

The latter certainly would not be considered fair use under the reasoning given by the judge in the case. He found that the search algorithm maintained:

> consideration for the rights of authors and other creative individuals, and without adversely impacting the rights of copyright holders

and that its incorporation into the Google Books system works to increase the sales of the copyrighted books by the authors. None of this can be said about Microsoft's product. It would seem to clearly fail the tests for fair use.

>https://medium.com/@brianjleeofcl/this-piece-should-be-retracted-ca740d9a36fe

Relevant bits - perhaps spouting off with a N=1 isn't the best look...

In practice, when SCOTUS denies the petition, the ruling made by the relevant appellate court is a legal precedent only within the the district (Second) where the circuit court has made its ruling. This means that a different court—say, the Ninth, which includes Silicon Valley—could go ahead and issue a ruling that directly opposes that of the Second. At this point, it becomes more likely that SCOTUS would grant cert since it would be a problem that under the same federal legal code, two opposing versions of case law could exist; after which the court would hear arguments and then finally issue a decision. Until that hypothetical occurs, there is no precedent set by a SCOTUS decision to note in this matter.

So a programmer who doesn't understand the law should take a harder look at what they post on Reddit unless the like being totally owned...