Adult Site Sues Google, Google Compared To MS Again

daria42 writes "It looks like Adult magazine publisher Perfect 10 is suing Google to stop the search engine giant from using images of models in the images part of its search engine. The publisher has alleged Google is in breach of its copyright by displaying more than 3,000 photos." From the article: "Perfect 10 first became aware of Google serving up text links to other Web sites that allegedly carried copyright images of Perfect 10 models back in 2001, Zada said in an interview on Thursday. The company then sent notices to Google, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, asking the search giant to discontinue linking to the other sites." Additionally, with users writing to mention that that Google has changed their 10 Things statement recently, yet another article comparing them to Microsoft was bound to turn up. From the Sydney Herald article: "The question is whether the young upstarts who have built a hugely profitable business on Google's anti-corporate image are on the way to following Gates's path from bright young turk to monopolistic behemoth." Update: 08/26 13:27 GMT by Z : xmas2003 points out that the requested injunction is part of the suit Perfect 10 brought against Google last November, which we have previously reported on.

No privacy

[kevin_conaway]

If they're putting these images out on a public website, how can they be upset when people view the images? It doesn't matter if they're found in a search engine or if someone browses to the site, they're out in the open.

Smells like someone is up to some clever [wikipedia.org] marketing.

Re:robots.txt

[DoorFrame]

Because the images in question aren't on Perfect 10's website, but are on other websites that have stolen their content and are redisplaying it without permission. The robots.txt file doesn't allow you to force google to not index other people's websites... only the almight lawsuit can do that.

Perfect Dupe

[xmas2003]

as can be seen here ... [slashdot.org]

Concrete Cam [komar.org] is up and running ... ;-)

Tired of BS Lawsuits

[Evil W1zard]

Simple fact is that the site needs to fix its security to disallow images it doesnt want shared to anyone from being displayed via search engines. Another reader said to block the robots.txt which would stop the problem right there. There are just too many lawsuits wasting the time of the US judicial system nowadays. Sorry just annoyed once again that the laziness of the site owners seems to warrant them suing someone who isn't really the root cause of the problem. (Can't you sue yourself!)

Every one of you people are fucking stupid

[LocalH]

You really didn't read the article, did you? And this makes it much worse than just Perfect 10 not being indexed:

"Perfect 10 first became aware of Google serving up

text links to other Web sites that allegedly carried copyright images of Perfect 10 models back in 2001, Zada said in an interview on Thursday. The company then sent notices to Google, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, asking the search giant to discontinue linking to the other sites.

In other words, they are suing Google for not policing Perfect 10's copyright. Not for indexing Perfect 10's sites, but rather for indexing other sites who happen to have stolen Perfect 10's images. And they're not suing the other sites - they're suing Google. This would be like if the *AA immediately started suing all ISPs as if they were knowingly involved in large-scale copyright infringement.

This is scary, and I hope Perfect 10 falls flat on their ass. It's not Google's job to police everyone else's copyright and make sure that they don't index images in such a manner.

Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Search Google Images for "site:perfect10.com" [google.com] and see for yourself. Even with SafeSearch turned off there are only 112 softcore pictures (mostly non-nude, naked breast on very few of them, a lot of logos and other website design elements). I Call bullshit.

It's not that simple.

[Vo0k]

They complain not that Google indexes and displays their site. They complain that people copy pics off their site, then display them on their own sites, and google indexes these sites.
IMHO bullshit. Google is not a police to check whether images they index infringe on someone's copyright. All they host are thumbnails which can be easily proven to be "fair use" for informative purposes. Then they LINK to pages that infringe on the site's copyright - and from then on, admins should send out C&D, sue and do all kinds of nasty things to admins of these sites. Once they remove the infringing content, Google will make its own indexes expire automatically, with next update. Of course assholes think it's easier to make Google remove the links, removing all traffic to the competing sites at once, instead of hunting each of them separately, but it seems all they can get is waste a lot on lawyers and have the case thrown out of court.
If I make a photo of a pile of CDs, with purpose to put it in a newspaper, I don't copy them, and in no way I'm responsible about finding out whether they are pirated or original. Same with thumbnails of images found on various sites. Google states the fact: "This site has these images". Determining legal status of that site having these images is completely offtopic.

Google is sued because they have the money

[HuguesT]

What is happening is that some random people took some "Perfect 10" images, either from P10's publicly available previews, or by any other means. Then these same random people have put up their own web site with these selfsame images, without permission from P10.

Finally these sites were harvested by Google and indexed.

So who is committing copyright infrigement again?

If anything Google should be thanked for providing a link to the people's website who took the images without permission, allowing them to be perhaps identified. P10 should be suing *them*.

But no, it's too much work and they probably are just a bunch of amateur with little to no money, so P10 is choosing to sue Google instead. Guess why.

How this has anything to to with Google's alleged "arrogance" we'll never know.

"Arrogant" is another term for successful people who are onto a good thing and they know it. Many can't take somebody else's success. So Apple, Microsoft and now Google are "arrogant".

Personnally I'm delighted that Google is doing so well. So far everybody benefits, including mere users. At least we have Microsoft running scared a little. In the past this meant they react intelligently and fast (like in the case of the web browser for win95) but these days they take the PR approach a bit more.

We'll see what happens.
 

They have one, of sorts...

[Rayaru]

From the site [google.com]:

* Full-disclosure update: When we first wrote these "10 things" four years ago, we included the phrase "Google does not do horoscopes, financial advice or chat." Over time we've expanded our view of the range of services we can offer -- web search, for instance, isn't the only way for people to access or use information -- and products that then seemed unlikely are now key aspects of our portfolio. This doesn't mean we've changed our core mission; just that the farther we travel toward achieving it, the more those blurry objects on the horizon come into sharper focus (to be replaced, of course, by more blurry objects).

Re:I suspect something 'Darl' like is in play here

[jmp_nyc]

There's a slight twist here. The complaint is that Google is linking to sites that are stealing their images. They wouldn't mind if the traffic for images they created was going to sites they control.

The problem is that they're going after Google, not the sites that are trying to profit from copyrighted material...
-JMP

Re:Publicity

[French Mailman]

The several "Google is becoming evil like Microsoft" articles that have popped up in the recent days contain a lot of the exact same ideas:

- Google is also attracting unfamiliar epithets such as "arrogant"
- Its sheer financial power has sent salaries in Silicon Valley rocketing
- Dotcom start-ups are also finding it difficult to persuade potential financial backers that their prospective markets will not be squashed by the might of Google

This looks a lot like the works of a PR company working for one of Google's competitors (Probably Microsoft, perhaps Yahoo). The articles show a lot of the patterns described by Paul Graham in his "Submarine" essay [paulgraham.com] (April 2005).

If the media did some actual research, instead of just printing whatever content the PR firms feed them, we'd have some more interesting content in the news.

Re:google is to microsoft as

[suresk]

Umm.. You actually *can* switch away from Microsoft's products. Ever heard of any of the following?

Browsers:
- Firefox
- Netscape
- Opera

Operating Systems:
- Linux
- OS X

Office Suites:
- Open Office

Media Players:
- iTunes
- WinAmp
- QuickTime
- RealPlayer

Dev Environments:
- Eclipse

I'll go ahead and get you another copy of that memo, mmm'kay?

Show them who's boss

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were Google I would simply remove "Perfect 10" from there crawler's accepted sites. That way it would never even mention perfect 10, no matter what. If you don't like your sluts being posted on an image search, then your website won't get posted either, say good bye to Perfect 10.

Re:pr0n.google.com

[poot_rootbeer]

Why not just create a free (as in beer) pr0n-service while holding up "Don't be evil" moral standars, and watch the competition be washed away?

Usenet binary groups already exist!

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure Perfect Ten used to (or still does?) post its own images to Usenet, as a form of marketing. I have to wonder why they're surprised that content they were giving away for free found its way onto other web sites.

Complete nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

If these "Perfect 10" guys don't want their media being displayed by search engines, they should just make their pages non searchable, and there are a good many ways to accomplish this.
IMHO these guys are just a bunch of (technically)poor programmers, running a (technically) crappy site and expecting to draw some bucks and free publicity from Google, the legal system, and their own lack of (technical) abilities.

Hey, Goatse could also sue Google! :p

Re:Publicity

[mav[LAG]]

You just need to look at a list of people quoted in the previous "Google is Evil" story [slashdot.org].

• Max Levchin, a founder of PayPal who stands to lose quite a bit if Google Wallet takes off
• Steven Lurie, an ex-Microsoft employee
• Joe Kraus, who founded Excite
• Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn
• Craig Donato, the founder and chief executive of Oodle, a site for searching online classified listings more quickly (nice original name there Craig)
• Brian Lent, the president of Medio Systems, a start-up in Seattle working on mobile-phone-based search.

I mean, could the journalist have chosen a more biased sample?

If they were good Netizens, they would...

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

1) mark their site with a robots.txt file which would prevent Google from indexing it and have Google take down the content they've already indexed, yet...
2) still leave some pages index-able as a teaser to the bulk of their content

idiots...