A Los Angeles federal court has ruled that Google's image search violates a porn site's copyright — because the search tool makes it possible to view thumbnails of the porn site's photos, which are intended to be locked behind a paywall.
U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz found Google directly infringed on copyrights held by Perfect 10, a Beverly Hills publisher. He said the free availability of the photos on Google could harm Perfect 10's efforts to sell thumbnail, or small, versions of its photos as downloads to cell phones.
"The court reaches this conclusion despite the enormous public benefit that search engines such as Google provide," Matz wrote in a 47-page order filed Friday. If upheld, the judge's ruling could affect Yahoo and other Internet companies whose image searches display thumbnails of copyrighted pictures. The judge ordered Google and Perfect 10 to submit by March 8 wording for a preliminary injunction barring the use of the thumbnail images.
Perfect 10 publishes the adult magazine "Perfect 10" and operates a subscription Web site that claims to feature "the world's most beautiful natural women." Google's image search displays thumbnail images when people submit a query on a particular subject. The tiny pictures are stored on Google's servers but when a person clicks on the image, he is taken to the original source of the full-sized image. Google's creation and display of the Perfect 10 thumbnail images "likely do not fall within the fair use exemption," Matz wrote, citing a legal standard that allows for limited use of copyrighted works, such as for criticism, comment, news reporting or teaching.
Link to SJ Merc article, Link to AP item.
