Nude Photos Get Google in Trouble Over Copyright Law

[rustybrick]

I just posted about Google Image Search Loses Perfect 10 Photo Site Copyright Case (http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060222-092733) at the SEW blog.

Perfect 10, an adult photo site, has proven to the court that Google's image search thumbnail copies are a violation of U.S. copyright law. This past Friday, U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz, ruled that Google has violated the law "by creating and displaying thumbnail copies of its photographs."

Danny then noted to me, why didn't they bring up the robots.txt thing. :confused:

[Joseph Morin]

Hmmm...how much free traffic was Google sending them?

Reminds me of the absurdly ridiculous case of Ticketmaster vs. Microsoft where Ticketmaster didnt want Microsoft 'deep linking' to their concert venues - which would have made each venue a lot more money from the link popularity alone - although at the time link pop within an algo was just getting started but still, that lawsuit turned out to bite them in the butt because imagine where they would be now.

[michaelzimmer]

They didn't lose the case - this is just a preliminary injunction.

[rustybrick]

Blog entry titles... :eek:

[dannysullivan]

Yeah, got that title fixed now.

[Chris Boggs]

nice barry...trying to get this thread ranked for "nude photos" are we? :p

[mcanerin]

I find it a very interesting case, with potentially wide ranging results. Keep in mind that all that was decided here was that it was "likely" P10 would win at least some of their arguments. This was not a full blown court case, and the standards are much lower. It's not over yet.

Here is the crux of the decision. There are two major ways to display someone else's content on your site: 1) copying it from their server and displaying it from your server, and 2) displaying it directly from their server using frames or some from of an include or scraper.

Google argues that the test should be server based. What server is the information coming from? In the case of framed content, the content is coming from the original server.

P10 argues that the test should be the incorporation test, whereby the test is "what website does this information appear to be from to the user?"

The court acknowledges that both tests can be abused, but prefers the server test, since it's easier for webmasters to understand and preserves the interconnectedness of the web.

Frankly, I disagree with this. I think the court is focused on frames, and does not realize the implications of applying this to includes and scrapers. Further, frames do not always need to be visible. I believe the court is focusing too much on the particular facts of this case and is ignoring the wider implications. They keep talking about the grey bars separating the frames and the displayed URL, for example.

Ironically, the court sides with Google as to it's preferred test, then proceeds to use that test against them, in that they admit that the thumbnails are created and stored by Google, and therefore are a copyright violation under their own test. The major reason is that the thumbnails are so large ( up to 8 times a human thumbnail) that they are useful by themselves for the purposes of PDA's and cell phone wallpapers, for example. I would further add that many images on some sites are actually smaller than Googles thumbnail, and thus, there is no "thumbnail" at all - just image theft via direct copy. I fully agree with the court regarding this.

I disagree with the court in another area, though. They find that because Google makes a lot of money from Adwords/Adsense, that the image search is therefore commercial. Since image search does not display Adwords, they attempt to connect the dots by pointing out that the more useful and popular Google becomes, the more people will use it, and therefore that increased traffic will make them money.

I'm not sure I buy that. I don't think the halo effect on traffic of image search is enough to declare that the image search is commercial. By that definition, everything a company does that people like, including charitable donations, are "commercial" because they tend to build loyalty. I think that's going too far. Now if Adwords was displayed on the image search, that would be a different issue. I personally don't see a significant connection between image search and Adwords.

The only way it could be connected would be to show that people were making images available with the intent of driving traffic to their sites, which in turn sold Adwords. That's closer, but then the one doing all this is the site owner, not Google. There is no system that I am aware of that knowingly connects image search to sites with Adwords.

Just some (initial) thoughts,

Ian

[mcanerin]

<added>

Regarding Adwords, it appears my initial assumption was wrong - the court said there was no significant connection between Adsense and Image search.

I'm glad to hear that - I didn't buy it either.

Finally, the court basically held that Google was likely to lose due to the thumbnail issue, but would probably win it's argument that they were not responsible for *other* peoples copyright infringments that image search dug up.

Ian

[idiophonics]

Why would they only be targeting Google? What about http://search.msn.com/ you can also search and download Perfect 10 images. Must be old Bill pulling some strings.

[mcanerin]

I doubt it - it's a bad strategy to fight more than one battle at the same time (not to mention very expensive). It's best to choose a representative company with deep enough pockets, and go after them in a tightly focussed manner.

Much better to win a case, then take that winning case in hand and go after everyone else. Since the ruling is fresh and on topic, it's far easier, and most just give up rather than fight it.

Ian

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

I'm not sure I buy that. I don't think the halo effect on traffic of image search is enough to declare that the image search is commercial.

I am not sure I agree with you. Most (if not all) a commercial company do is done to make the business better - including contributions to charity (that is ultimately done to make people think they are "nce" and therfore like them them more, use them more etc).

I really don't see the logic that "stealing" is OK, if you only display and sell the stolen goods in an area of your shop where you do not sell other of your products (even though you have signs pointing to that department).

The search engines are highly commercial companies. If they do not think image search has any value to them they should drop it. If they think it has value they need to work out a deal with the copyright holders. You can't argue that it's OK to steal only because you claim what you steal have no value to you. If it has no value - then why steal it? ... I took your car, but it dosn't really drive that well, so I guess it's ok :)

[dannysullivan]

I need to read the ruling in more detail, but I don't recall that framing was an issue. I think the court was actually cool with that.

Google seems to have added a send image to phone feature recently. Perfect 10 sells downscaled versions of its photos that you can have on your phone. So Google was found to be directly having an impact on that for fee service. I suspect the injunction might be to prevent that particular send to phone feature from working for these particular photos.

I still remain perplexed about why robots.txt doesn't appear to have been an issue. I've got a question out to Google on that, but haven't heard back. If Perfect 10 doesn't want to be in the index, robots.txt would keep them out, problem solved. But in the Kelly case, he didn't feel he should be required to use robots.txt. Maybe that's the same here.

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

I still remain perplexed about why robots.txt doesn't appear to have been an issue.

I really don't think robots.txt should be an issue. If a act is illegal I don't think it should be OK if you did not tell people (or Google) NOT to do it.

Imagine that a militant group of feminists (just to use a crazy example) decides that unless I put a candle light in my window they will come and beat me up at night. Would that be OK too? After all, they HAVE issued a way for me to opt-out - I can just put up the candle light, right? How is this any different the robots.txt? What if I just don't want to have to deal with the candle light or the robots.txt but still want the law to apply (not to get beaten up - or to get my copyrighted material copied)?

In a case of copyright violation I don't think it is a valid argument that there is a way to opt-out of the violation taking place. The question should be if there is a violation or not in the first place.

[Chris Boggs]

seems to me that the simple solution would be for P10 to block the content from being indexed (hmm sounds familiar (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?threadid=10204)).

If a website places thumbnails out in the open, unless they protect the image, it can be donloaded to anyone's computer, and then onto a cell phone, n'est-ce-pas? If the adult content websites continue to offer free "preview" images and "sample videos" (I've heard about these too recently ;) ), then I see no reason why G cannot index the content just like any other bit of information in its databases. (but OK G should adhere to robots.txt exclusions)

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

then I see no reason why G cannot index the content just like any other bit of information in its databases.

First of all, I think there is a very big difference between the way image search and web search works. Most people that use the websearch click the listings they want to see but I suspect that many users of the image search simple use the images as they are republished by Google - directly on Google.com without ever visiting the site.

Secondly I don't neccesarily think web search - the way it works today with caching and all, is neccesarily legal. Only time and real cases in all the juridictions the engines operate in will show. Caching and image search could turn out to be illegal in Germany - but legal in the US.

[vayapues]

First of all, I think there is a very big difference between the way image search and web search works. Most people that use the web search click the listings they want to see but I suspect that many users of the image search simple use the images as they are republished by Google - directly on Google.com without ever visiting the site.

Secondly I don't necessarily think web search - the way it works today with caching and all, is necessarily legal. Only time and real cases in all the jurisdictions the engines operate in will show. Caching and image search could turn out to be illegal in Germany - but legal in the US.

I often only look at the results on Google, and never actually go to any sites. As an example, yesterday, I could not remember for the life of me when the Triassic Period ended, and the Jurassic began. I searched "Triassic period end" and in the third result down, you see my answer, so there is not need to go to anyone's website.

I search this way, at least three or four times a week.

Similarly, I often use image search to find a product or other topic I am researching, when I am not entirely sure what the name is, but I know what the thing looks like. This saves me a lot of time. When I see what I want, I then go to the site, and read more. I don't have to click on dozens of sites with items that have a similar name, but are not what I need.

The vast majority of users are probably not savvy enough to swipe another person's image via Google Images. Of course all of us know it is not hard to take it, but most people are not very tech-savvy.

Now, if Google is offering a feature to send it to you, this opens up a whole new can of worms, and in this case, I would agree that they are violating copyright. (probably)

[vayapues]

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I am starting to believe that they would be more in violation (from a layman's point of view) regarding caching text, than images. (I will leave the actual legal prognostication stuff to those who know, Ian).


They Monetize off of text search, where as they do not off of image search
When displaying text, there is no reason to go to the users site, if you can already read what you are looking for either in the description of the site, or on the cache page.
If you search via images, you absolutely have to go to the website, if you want to do any type of research.


As a publisher who makes much of my living on ad revenues generated off of articles written for my children themed websites, I should be far more concerned about text caching than about image caching. But actually, I am not really concerned about either.

By the way, Google Images is my 8th highest referrer, so certainly enough traffic to make it worth it to me.

[dannysullivan]

I really don't think robots.txt should be an issue. If a act is illegal I don't think it should be OK if you did not tell people (or Google) NOT to do it.
Until now, the last court case found image search was not illegal if it involved thumbnails and if there were disclaimers or something like that, at least in the US.

I think robots.txt remains very much an issue because of the other case, the caching case, where it was viewed as something a site owner could do if they wanted to opt out and effectively enforce copyright.

Of course, Google could always come back and argue that it's caching the photos :)

Anyway, there's still so much of this actual law about search to be tested. I remain surprised that robots.txt doesn't appear to have been raised as a defense. It would have been natural to do that. Not saying it would have worked, but it's the first thing you'd raise.

[mcanerin]

I think an issue is that calling something a thumbnail does not necessarily mean it *is* a thumbnail.

The general rule of thumb for fair use is that you use the minimum necessary to get the point across, rather than focusing on the maximum amount you can use.

At the point where the thumbnail is large enough to be a useful or desired image itself, fair use, IMO, no longer exists. At that point it's a copyright violation.

For robots.txt - I agree that it should certainly come up, but what if you are OK with Google indexing your images in order to facilitate search traffic, but are NOT OK with Google indexing your images to *replace* your search traffic?

Ian

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

In the Newsbooster case from Denmark robots.txt was in fact used but refused by the judge as not being relevant for the reasons I mentioned above. In fact, one of the winning newspapers in the case actually HAD a robots.txt file in place excluding all bots and Newsbooster respected it - but the newspaper still won! The last part I personally found a bit over the top. However, it's the only case on search here so far and as such I am pretty sure it would be used in other search/copyright cases here if they ever came up.

[Chris Boggs]

At the point where the thumbnail is large enough to be a useful or desired image itself, fair use, IMO, no longer exists. At that point it's a copyright violation.

For robots.txt - I agree that it should certainly come up, but what if you are OK with Google indexing your images in order to facilitate search traffic, but are NOT OK with Google indexing your images to *replace* your search traffic?
This is still confusing me. So legal precedence as Danny says is that if G uses it's own version and it is clearly labeled, then it is OK. Your point seems to further support that, essentially deeming the thumbnail to be comparatively "worthless" due to its quality. Wouldn't that in turn lead to traffic to the site (and possibly conversions for the site), instead of replacing it? How much less traffic could you possibly get due to the image being in G's cache?

It still ends up in my mind boiling down to my last point that if the images are free to the public, why not free to Google? I'm just not getting it. Why wouldn't you want another listings in G, whether Search or Image Search?


On the topic of Robots.txt...is there an extension to that which would allow for the indexing of the non-image content of a page only?

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

It still ends up in my mind boiling down to my last point that if the images are free to the public, why not free to Google?

I often get the same kind of questions from people, and sometimes even lawyers, that are not too familiar with how copyright law works.

There is a big difference between letting private people privately enjoy your work and then having people or commercial companies exploit it. For example, if I publish an article on my site and keep it open to anyone, people are free to read it, but thats it. They can't copy it, republish it or use it for anything commercial.

Same thing goes for a CD. When you buy it all you get is a personal right to use it in your private home. If you broadcast it (or even play it at a public part), copy it, make MP3 and put them on your site you are violating the limited license you got from buying the CD. (Public broadcasting, however, is most often just a matter of actually paying the additional license fee for the "air" time)

Just because something is available dosn't make it legal to take or use any way you like. If I forget to lock my car it dosn't mean that you are alloowed to steal it - no matter how easy it might be. Not even for a short drive. And not even if you return it after you are done :)

Just because most of us in here think it's a "fair deal" with web-search - Google steal, and we get new visitors, dosn't make it right or legal. All it takes to find out is one angry publisher (in each and every country/jurisdiction where the engnes operate!) that want to bring it to court.

In Denmark, and I believe Germany too, I think such cases would be easier to win than most places because engines have already lost similar cases in the past.

The biggest problem with all this, in my mind, is that the major engines just never cared to sit down with the publishers and make an agreement about what they do - they just take our work, use it, abuse it, and make money from it. That is not the way to do things in a civilized world.

[Chris Boggs]

Mikkel you pose a very convincing argument. Do you forsee the possibility of Google or others ever having to share their wealth with the websites that have popular content indexed within its image search? Would that be a fair compromise, if even logistically feasable?

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

Would that be a fair compromise,, if even logistically feasable?

I can't really speak on behalf of all the publishers in the world but to me, personally, an opt-in model would be the first natural choice. However, I really think what needs to happen is that the major engines take the pblishers more serious and actually sit down with their various representatives and make an agreement about all this. I don't like this "wild-west" attitude that the engines have now and I think it is in fact hurting them more than they know. For example, it leaves me thinking: "If Google don't care about my copyright why should I give a f... about any laws that might protect them?"

Noel McMichael once presented a very nice model on the search "ecosystem". We all influence the results - one way or another: Users, engines, partners, advertisers, web-publishers and SEOs. I like to swim in a nice clear lake - don't we all, and a well ballanced ecosystem will provide just that. However, there seems to be way to many fools around the engines that P in my river and it makes it smell "funny" ... :D

[PhilC]

I think an issue is that calling something a thumbnail does not necessarily mean it *is* a thumbnail.I completely agree. To my way of thinking, the images in Google's image search aren't thumbnails at all. They are mostly small versions of the images, but not thumbnails.

It still ends up in my mind boiling down to my last point that if the images are free to the public, why not free to Google? I'm just not getting it.Your webpages are free to the public, Chris, so what would be wrong with them being free to other website owners? What would be wrong with me reproducing your pages in my site?

Google argues that the test should be server based. What server is the information coming from? In the case of framed content, the content is coming from the original server.According to the test that Google prefers, the images that they display in image searches are stored in their own servers, so they claim that it's ok for them to display them. But the images that are displayed in cached pages are not stored on their own servers. Google's cache pages acquire them from other people's servers. So causing the images to be displayed in cached pages fails their own test. They want it every way, as long it suits them.

[Chris Boggs]

Your webpages are free to the public, Chris, so what would be wrong with them being free to other website owners? What would be wrong with me reproducing your pages in my site?
I was thinking more along the lines of "samples," I guess, and not considering them to still be copyrighted, which of course they are. The thing is though we are talking about a database of information including my website when we speak of Google, so that may be different from another website hosting the content (which trust me I am very familiar with happening with another site of ours). I do not mind that G keeps a cache of my info, and I wonder why someone else would, still.

[PhilC]

Google is just another website, and must be seen as just another website. I'd guess that you would object to me creating a website to display your pages and images within my site, even though the display clearly states that they are yours, and not mine. Legally, Google can't be seen as being any different to my site.

As to why anyone would object to their stuff being displayed by Google - I object to it because, if people are going to view my stuff, I want them to be in my site and not in Google's site.

Google do a lot of good things, but they also do some very bad things, imo. Their image search facility is one of the bad things. To my way of thinking, it's nothing less than theft. Not only that, but it positively assists the theft of images. To be honest, I truly think that the main reason for doing an image search is to find and steal images for web pages.

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

To my way of thinking, it's nothing less than theft. Not only that, but it positively assists the theft of images. To be honest, I truly think that the main reason for doing an image search is to find and steal images for web pages.

legally there is a big difference between "theft" and "copyright violation" but I get your point, and I agree :)

I also agree, that the main reason for having image search is to assist people in "stealing" images for their websites, power point presentations (just take a quick look at all the presentations at a great conference such as SES - how many how NOT copied an image of Google image search? hehe).

However, it is not allways illegal to asist people in doing something illegal - and sometimes itøs actualy illegal to help people do something legal (such as with suicide - in Denmark suicide is not illegal, but its illegal to help anyone do it). For example, it is legal here (in Denmark) to sell a machine to prodice alcohol - even though it is illegal to use it for that purpose. It is also legal to buy a large knife but you can't walk around with downtown.

But even if it turns out it is not illegal for Google to supply a "tool to commit crimes" I think it is indeed very un-ethical. What happend to all that "do no evil" - is helping people commit crimes not evil?

[PhilC]

Yes, there is a big difference between stealing and copyright violation. When something is stolen, the owner is deprived of it. It could be argued that displaying images in Google's image search, without the owners' permission, deprives the owners of royalties - not precisely theft, but very close to it. Even so, to my mind, copyright violation is still theft and, imo, the content (results) of Google's entire image search is exactly that.

[Kilroy]

On the topic of Robots.txt...is there an extension to that which would allow for the indexing of the non-image content of a page only?

To prevent Google from indexing the photos only, you just have to forbid the crawl of the folder they are stored in.

Perfect10.com has no robots.txt. There is no meta robots tag on their pages, but a fairly long meta keywords tag (filled with the names of their models).
If they had wanted the thumbnails to disappear from Google, they could have used the removal form (http://www.google.com/intl/en/webmasters/remove.html) Google provides. I have tested it with one of my website images and they were removed from the index in less than 12 hours.

I thought that Google and Yahoo had also erased images from other adult websites, as I could not find them with the site: command, but I had forgotten to remove the adult filters :rolleyes: Even photos from perfect10.com can still be found on Google.

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

I hope I did not imply that I think copyright violations are less serious or bad than theft - it's just different. It can swing both ways. Stealing a cheap pencil from me is not as bad as making illegal copies of my latest CD and put in on your site as free MP3s. On the other hand, stealing my car is a lot worse than violating my rights to the words I am writing in this small post :)

However, if and when a major corporation, such as Google, implement broad scaled business practises that include possible copyright violations I think that is certainly in the upper end of the "bad-scale".

[Andrew Qunice]

Google continues to take a self-righteous line with the US Department of Justice in vigorously resisting the DOJ’s request for a random sample of Internet addresses available through its search engine. US federal prosecutors want the information to defend the 1998 Child Online Protection Act. Google’s sanctimonious attitude has however, become increasingly difficult to defend.

It appears unwilling to help the US administration to defend the law in this case. And this week, it was found guilty of breaking the law when an American judge ruled that Google’s search engine for images had breached the copyright protection of a publisher of pornograhic photographs (Financial Times, February 22nd).

Its decision to collaborate with the Chinese government in censoring search results available to users serves to further emphasise Google’s finance-led fickleness and its eagerness to put commercial profit above all other considerations. Google’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ certainly rings hollow.

[Alan Perkins]

I find Google's position on this quite consistent, in that when they make what they consider to be "fair use" of other site's content they show ads. When they don't make what they consider to be fair use of the content, then they don't show ads. This "no profit from unfair use, just provide a service to searchers" position is interesting, and may not be legally justifiable (see also the controversy over Google Book Search, for example), but at least Google seems to handle it in a consistent way...
Google shows ads in its standard Web search results, alongside snippets of other sites' content. These snippets are deemed (correctly or incorrectly) as fair use. Other search engines do likewise. Google Web search for van Gogh (http://www.google.com/search?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=van%20gogh)
Google shows no ads alongside a cached page. (Cached Top Result of Van Gogh web search showing no ads (http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:So9ZAOmM1wQJ:www.vangoghgallery.com/+van+gogh&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1)). Ironically, those who have copied Google's cache concept also show no ads on their cached pages.
Google's image results contain image "thumbnails", not text "snippets". It's arguable whether thumbnails and snippets are analogous for fair use purposes, but Google does not seem to think they are, as it does not run ads alongside its image results. (Google image results for van Gogh, showing no ads (http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=van+gogh)). IMO if Google thought they were making fair use of those images then they would run ads on those search results.
By contrast, Yahoo!-owned AltaVista shows ads alongside its image search results (http://www.altavista.com/image/results?q=van+gogh&mik=photo&mik=graphic&mip=all&mis=all&miwxh=all) - and so does Ask (http://images.ask.com/pictures?qsrc=1&o=312&q=van%20gogh).
Google also shows no ads in its frame header when it frames other sites to show images in context. Google-Framed Top Result of Van Gogh web search showing no ads (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.laks.com/images/302bild.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.laks.com/english/302.html&h=550&w=438&sz=34&tbnid=8h9U3UR-990WYM:&tbnh=130&tbnw=103&hl=en&start=1&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dvan%2Bgogh%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26l r%3D).
Ask also shows no ads in its frame header (http://images.ask.com/fr?q=van+gogh&desturi=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dcs.shef.ac.uk%2F%7Esam%2 Fresults%2Fartist%2520domain%2Fhtmloutput%2Fartwor k%2FA%2FAutoportrait%2Findex.html&fm=i&ac=5&ftURI=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.ask.com%3A80%2Ffr%3Fq%3D van%2Bgogh%26desturi%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.dcs. shef.ac.uk%252F%257Esam%252Fresults%252Fartist%252 520domain%252Fhtmloutput%252Fartwork%252FA%252FAut oportrait%252Findex.html%26imagesrc%3Dhttp%253A%25 2F%252Fwww.poster.net%252Fvan-gogh-vincent%252Fvan-gogh-vincent-autoportrait-3100276.jpg%26thumbsrc%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252F65.214 .37.88%252Fts%253Ft%253D7056266289188153058%26thum buselocalisedstatic%3Dfalse%26fn%3Dvan-gogh-vincent-autoportrait-3100276.jpg%26f%3D2%26fm%3Di%26ftbURI%3Dhttp%253A% 252F%252Fimages.ask.com%252Fpictures%253Fq%253Dvan %252Bgogh%2526page%253D1&qt=0). Yahoo! has no frame header.
So Google's position seems consistent, and technically (if not legally) correct. Their position seems to be... caching is OK (the Internet is built on it, after all, and they have Vint Cerf to attest to that) Displaying other people's content under your URL without permission is OK as long as a) you provide proper attribution, b) you don't make money off it (no ads, no paid subscription0 c) you provide a means to stop it happening (robots.txt and various robots meta tags) It's OK to make money by providing a service that makes fair use of other people's contentIf Google is wrong about any of those things, then there's a paradigm shift coming in the search market.

[rockcoastmedia]

I need to read the ruling in more detail, but I don't recall that framing was an issue. I think the court was actually cool with that.

Google seems to have added a send image to phone feature recently. Perfect 10 sells downscaled versions of its photos that you can have on your phone. So Google was found to be directly having an impact on that for fee service. I suspect the injunction might be to prevent that particular send to phone feature from working for these particular photos.

I still remain perplexed about why robots.txt doesn't appear to have been an issue. I've got a question out to Google on that, but haven't heard back. If Perfect 10 doesn't want to be in the index, robots.txt would keep them out, problem solved. But in the Kelly case, he didn't feel he should be required to use robots.txt. Maybe that's the same here.

It may be that the court deemed any programming by Google which would make the web site owner take additional steps that they would not normally need to take in simply having their site indexed is outside the scope of the duty imposed to the webmaster. It should also be noted that this Preliminary Injunction is based on a 5-part test only one of the tests is whether it is probable that P10 will sucseed at trial. I would think that Goolge can make a case for fair use if they can prove no commerical use. The obvious problem in this case is that a major reason people use Google is to search images and that is a commerical draw to then use their natural search which does include adwords.

[jamesrick]

Has anyone considered the possibility that this could be a part media-stunt for Perfect 10? Seems they've got quite a discussion going on here and I imagine in many other online communities as well.

I wonder how many memberships they got out of SEW coverage alone. :)

[rockcoastmedia]

I should think this is not a media stunt, as any attorney who brings an action in a Federal Court, would need to make a good faith investigation into the claims. If this were a frivolous law suite under the Federal Rules of Evidence the Attorney could be santioned under Rule 11 and hit up with heavy fines, and even possible temporery loss of his or her license.

[suthra]

http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-6041724.html >>>
"U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz ruled Friday that Perfect 10, an adult-oriented Web site featuring "beautiful natural women" "
>>>

Seems like the judge is a frequet visitor of that photo site ;)

[PhilC]

Google continues to take a self-righteous line with the US Department of Justice in vigorously resisting the DOJ’s request for a random sample of Internet addresses available through its search engine. US federal prosecutors want the information to defend the 1998 Child Online Protection Act. Google’s sanctimonious attitude has however, become increasingly difficult to defend.

It appears unwilling to help the US administration to defend the law in this case. And this week, it was found guilty of breaking the law when an American judge ruled that Google’s search engine for images had breached the copyright protection of a publisher of pornograhic photographs (Financial Times, February 22nd).

Its decision to collaborate with the Chinese government in censoring search results available to users serves to further emphasise Google’s finance-led fickleness and its eagerness to put commercial profit above all other considerations. Google’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ certainly rings hollow.
Now there's an "I Love Google" post, if ever I saw one :rolleyes:

If you want to moan about the DOJ issue, get your facts right first. There's an excellent thread on it in this forum, and plenty of writing on it elsewhere. In a nutshell, the DOJ didn't ask Google for anything that would help them in any way.

If you want to moan about the China issue, take it up with the people who make the laws, and not with the people who have to abide by them.

Better still, try sticking to the topic of the thread.