In a 48 page document, signed Friday 17 February, A US Judge has ruled that Google infringed copyright by posting thumbnail porn photos on its Image Search Website.
Judge Howard Matz’s ruling, handed down in Los Angeles, stems from a lawsuit filed in 2004 by the pornography firm Perfect 10 Inc., which accused Google of breach of copyright.
Perfect 10 considers Google’s “Image Search” function as copyright infringing. The function provides thumbnail images that can be blown up to full screen. The “image search” function does also allow searchers to view the image as it appears on the page.
The judge ruled that because Google receives advertising money from offering search functions, it is not entitled to the same level of free use of the images as other entities would be, in contrast to Arriba Soft Corp. which a Californian Court of Appeal had ruled was operating within “fair use” by creating and using thumbnail images on its site.
Matz’s ruling notes that Perfect 10, which sells thumb nail size images to cell phone users through Fonestarz Media, would lose out financially if Google were not stopped.
The judge found, however, that Google did not violate Perfect 10′s copyrights by linking to WebPages that themselves displayed Perfect 10 images without permission, noting that “given the exponentially increasing amounts of data on the Web, search engines have become essential sources of vital information for individuals, governments, nonprofits and businesses who seek to locate information.”
Google lawyer Michael Kwun stated that “We anticipate that any preliminary injunction will have no effect on the vast majority of image searchers, and will affect only searches related to Perfect 10.”
According to Dr. Norm Zada, former IBM Computer Science Research Staff Member and professor at Stanford, UCLA, and Columbia Universities, who began publishing Perfect 10 Magazine in 1997, most search engine traffic is sex-related.
Essentially Perfect 10 claims that Google is a purveyor of pornography that pretends to be a search engine. Since Google displays images from Perfect 10 and Playboy, and nude scenes from movies, compromising images of celebrities and supermodels without paying royalties, but generates advertising revenue in the process.
Agence France-Presse also sued Google Inc. for copyright infringement last year, claiming that the search engine was displaying its news and photos without permission.
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