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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.
This looks like a publicity stunt if I ever saw one. No, I won't provide a link, thankyouverymuch.
More
to just remove themselves?? They could just read http://www.google.com/remove.html or google for "remove website from google"... But then again, lawyers have got to make a living...
How to Destroy Angels II
"Sex is my job"
""I have never felt exploited. If anything it's giving you power over men. The only people exploited, if anyone is, are the men who go out and spend their money on porn," says..Michelle Thorne, who has worked in the porn industry for six years"
Perhaps google should completely remove all references to the site from its search engine database, and ensure that it never gets listed again?
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
Strangely enough, these people are suing google for the actions of others. They are suing google because google's webcrawler doesn't automatically block sites containing their copyrighted works. They're basically saying it's Google's job to police the entire web to enforce their copyrights. They have no case, because they would have to prove under the DMCA that Google was built to facilitate the copying of copyrighted works. Not only that, but it'd be difficult to say that they are circumventing a copyright protection scheme because the pictures are not protected by anything more elaborate than password protection on the website. They'll lose and they're dumb for wasting the time filing the suit. This is a real good example of a frivolous lawsuit.
James
It seems they're in a habit of getting free publicity. From TFA:
Perfect 10's lawsuit against Google is similar to one it filed against Amazon.com in July. In that suit, Perfect 10 makes similar allegations against Amazon's A9 search engine.
If they're so damn pissed with their images turning up on search engines, why don't they just pull them off 'public' access. I mean put them under an area accessible only after someone logs in.
Heck, there's robots.txt...
Nandz.
Then the suit should be filed against the websites illegally serving their copyrighted images, not Google.
Isn't the problem that other websites are displaying the content in violation of the original website's copyright? Google's automatic crawling is indexing these "stolen" images and redisplaying them in its search results. So when someone clicks on one of those links, they go to the violating website instead of the original website.
I'm not sure that Google ought to be held liable for this. They only provide an indexing service which is just happening to find copyright violations. There is a case to be made that by redisplaying thumbnail versions of the images, that they are also in violation of copyright, but it's nowhere near as clear cut as with the actually infringing websites.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
I do things for money that I wouldn't ordinarily do. It's called "gainful employment".
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
It really is about time now. 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?
;-)
:%s/Open Source/Free Software/g
YTARY!
Yeah, and I'm sure google can help Perfect 10 find them and help put the people away since they have the pictures cached with the URL. Case closed, but no, go after the one that has more money is always the way people go these days. Not after the real criminals.
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Then.. uh... shouldn't Perfect 10 be going after the real offenders, and not the index server which simply aggrigates all of the images that fit the searched terms?
To me, it looks like everyone and their mother is trying to cash in on Google. They're such a huge target that they're easy to attack with lawsuits. This actually does make them like Microsoft, but unlike Microsoft, Google doesn't have a legal department the size of Kentucky to back it up... give it time though.
Who knows, I might sue Google for aggrigating my slashdot comments! That's about as frivilous as this lawsuit is.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
IN other words, what the fuck is the comparison? Wake me up when I'm NOT ALLOWED to switch away from their products and they've managed to muzzle the regulators despite clearly illegal monopolistic behavior!
Doesn't anybody get it? MS doesn't have to do anything for their customers and they automatically get billions every month. Google has to satisfy customers to get revenue. Does Google try to go over your head if you don't want to use their products?
Well, according to the DMCA, it is.
Archive.org's cache of Google's Ten-Things list:m /corporate/tenthings.html
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.google.co
Google is helping them by allowing them to easily find sites that have said copyrighted images on them.
How would the magazine know about these infringements if it weren't for google?
Are they asking for money, or just asking Google to take down the links once they've been notified of the offending content? I wouldn't call it "cashing in" if they're just asking for the links to be taken down. I have other problems with it, but it's not "cashing in."
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RumorsDaily
Displaying something publically doesn't waive copyright. It doesn't work that way.
the thing about the web is that you really have no idea how things are happening under the hood. i find it pretty unlikely that google is simply letting their search technology rot on the vine, instead of continuing to improve it. or perhaps you'd prefer more press releases? ("Google search v10.3.5.2.1.1.9a released!")
Well, lawsuit tends to have the word "settlement" attached to it, which usually has a monitary value either in time, lawyer's paychecks, etc. And it's free publicity for Perfect 10, at the cost of Google's shining 'Do no evil' image.
So it may not have financial value, but it definitely has value. If it were a sane company/person, they would have emailed Google and said "hey, look. please, please take down those links, they're hurting our business and violating our copyright".. instead of waving around the DMCA and getting the media involved, which I'm sure Perfect 10's gonna use to their advantage in trying to get a bigger settlement.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Whats the worst part about it is that if people had known that google was going to trash dejanews, they wouldn't have deleted their own usenet archives.
i) harder to track down than Google
ii) probably much poorer than Google,
so it's really not a tricky decision for Perfect 10's lawyers as to who they go after.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Basically Googles "do no evil" slogan is slowly whipped away with every lawsuit it gets. Because the more you sue a company the more protective it will get to preserve its own rights. The more protective it gets the more likely it will strike back. If we knew how to properly boycott companies that do evil things until they stop vs. trying to sue them but still purchase their stuff. Companies will probably be a lot less "evil" because their bottom line is based on their goodness.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Replace Google with Napster and Perfect 10 with the RIAA. Is this really such an open and shut case in favor of Google?
This is a tricky question. Here we have two systems, with different targets and goals that collide. Much like when two cultural societys meets each other.
Google aims to provide the best possible search engine on the internet. This requires certain methods that are optimized in regard to provide the users with the content they need. This engine has not been designed to violate copyrights. Should it be held liable when it happens? It's the same as being able to make a law suit against a baseball bat manufacturer, as their bats might be used as weapons.
Perfect 10 deliver porn to its users. Most of this content is in images, and therefore the value (the product) is the images them self. This is the reason copyright laws were made. If their content is "stolen" and "sold" through other channels than their own site, they lose money.
The problem is that both arguments make reason.
It would be difficult if a company like Google should integrate a filter to lockout individual cases, like Perfect 10. In a sense such a filter would work against the Google product.
Technically the real case will probably end with discussions about caching of images on the Google servers and displaying content outside their context... time will show. The winner will probably be the company with most muscle, as it usually is, and this will unfortunately deprive us of knowing the best solution to the problem.
-:) Oh no - not again.
www.rednebula.com
With luck, the law will (ultimately) distinguish between enterprise and infrastructure. Suing Google makes as much sense as suing your post-office for mail fraud.
Moreover... beyond images, what about copyrighted phrases like "Things go better with Coke"? Should Google not search for them?
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
Feel free to compares Google and M$ when Google requires all PC OEMs to include a browser that will only display their Web site and Google penalizes these companies if they attempt to provide a browser that will display non-Google pages. Oh, and when Google builds and operating system and only provides their services/apps to that OS. Oh yeah, and when they use their marketshare to rebrand technologies that will only work with their upcoming OS.
Let's make an effort here to make the point that there might be some similar aspects to Google and Microsoft, but this bland statement of comparision is silly.
I think there's two parts to a large majority of the bad press that Google has been getting. Keep in mind, I'm not going to defend them blindly, but I just can't bring myself to buy into most of the garbage that's being run, so here goes:
1. Like you said ciro, people are just suing Google because they know that Google has money. It's like all the Michael Jackson pedophile cases (please don't go further into those). As long as people can suspect that something is going on even without proving it, they're going to go for the gold. Google tries to keep their secrets about the business and so people think that the mystery behind their search engine gives companies the right to sue over the stupidest things.
2. As childish and stupid as it may sound, I think there are a small number of cases of bad press about Google going around whose flames were fanned by getting lowered on the grand ladder of Page Rank. With how much money people are pouring into SEO and SEM 'experts' however knowledgable they really are, I can easily conceive that someone will cough up that same amount to shit on Google's front lawn when that SEO project resulted in a lower rank in the only engine they think matters.
Bottom line: The internet is a big and scary place, and when you can't find that mean man that stole your purse, you can blame it on that really big guy standing next to you because he's probably that big for a bad reason. Or at least you can make a few judges believe you.
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
The age of majority is 18. That means an 18 year old is, by definition, old enough to decide these things on their own. An 18 year old who makes a different decision that you might isn't neccessarily naive or stupid. Your attitude is actually an extremely patronizing and disrespectful one.
Are you arguing that the age of majority should be raised to 25?
Frankly, I've known several 50 and 60 year olds who, in my opinion, were no good at considering the long-term consequences of their actions. But so what? They're adults and they will do as they wish, regardless of what I think.
Show me a porn site that doesn't want people's browsers sent its way. Half of spam sent is trying to achieve that effect (okay and infect you with spayware and other creepy crawlies.)
They must be be getting their money some other way than by earning it.
So who are the players here? What links are there to some competition. (And there must already be a way to tell search 'bots' to ignore subdirectories so this suit is nothing but a legal annoyance, not a valid suit.)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
But for the fact that Napster was used almost exclusively to download illegal content. This can hardly be asserted for Google...
Sigh... are you kidding me? Liberals and/or feminists are the people that define porn as exploitation. And, of course, a "conservative = bad" post get's a +5 Insightful.
You are quite right, why doesn't this company simply change its robots.txt file?
The point is it's more like have your house invaded and your lawn mower stolen, then sue the news paper for publishing your address that was contained in the public record police report, making it easier for the next crook to know where some idiot that doesn't lock up lives.
Google only shows a thumbnail of the image, this is assumed to be within the doctrine of fair use as its a small portion, not the full image, to get the full image you have to follow the link to it, where the rights owner is able to distribute the full image on their standards, or to the location of the infringer.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
How about all the 18-24 year old girls who are paying their way through school or supporting a family?
BTW - age 18 is considered in Canada (and much of the United States) as "age of majority". By that age, people are considered mature enough to vote to change the future of our nation, smoke cigarettes, drive any form of motor vehicle, own property, enter into legal contracts, hold full-time careers, etc. Why then are they not old enough to decide how, when and where to use their own bodies?
BTW2 - what are the consequences? To have people such as yourself and others look down on them for their career choice?
A friend of mine was a stripper (no sexual favours, just dancing) who paid her way through college, bought a car then replaced it some years later and completely supported her husband while he attended university. She now works full-time (with her clothes on) as does he, and he makes more than enough money to support them both comfortably due to his credentials.
Does she hide the fact that she stripped? Hell no. Does she feel exploited? Yep. She feels that she exploited dozens of men every night who turned over 10, 20 or even several hundred dollars to be in her company.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
Duh, they can GOOGLE for them.
Never confuse volume with power.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
So why aren't they suing the image thieves?
that's right, google's got deep pockets.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Google pisses off their competetitors, who can't compete because, well, they suck at competing. Their users all love them.
Microsoft pisses off their competetitors because they use illegal, immoral, unethical tactics to forgo competition, even with companies that are far better ethically and technologically.
Microsoft's customers hate them because their products suck.
We are ALL exploited by our employers and made to do things that make us uncomfortable in order to secure our next paycheck. Whores and strippers are not unique in this.
This is Jack's inability to be impressed with one form of exploitation vs. another.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If this "Perfect 10" found a publisher illegally using their images was advertising in a local newspaper, they'd sue the newspaper rather than the publisher, right?
Except perfect10 isn't asking google to not index perfect 10's website. They are saying, "Hey, all these assholes out there are using our photos without permission. You are indexing those stolen images, making your own copy and displaying our pictures. And adding profit generating advertisements to your indexes of our images. Additionally you are associating our name with these infringing sites. Please stop."
You can put all the robots.txt files on your site you want, but it's not going to affect google's indexing of my site. See why it is the absolute height of stupid to even mention robots.txt?
Society is full of things where there is a primary purpose and a secondary effect and the owner is required to moderate that secondary effect. Television and radio stations have to make sure that they meet certain standards. Automobile drivers have to make sure their cars only dump so much crap into the atmosphere. Oil companies are responsible when their tankers run aground and dump billions of barrels of oil into the ocean.
People have made an comparison with the phone book. Yet you can't look in your phonebook under "wheels" and get a list of places that specialize in distributing stolen name brand wheels. Yet google indexes sites after sites that do nothing except distribute images in violation of copyright.
First of all, its the magazine's fault if their images weren't protected... and if its showing up on google, then their website didn't do the proper procedure to warn googles bot that it wasn't to use these images. For all search engines, if a website doesn't want to appear on them, all it needs to do is put a text file into it that the search engines look for, and if its found, the info on the site wont apear on the search engine.
So as I understand it, Perfect 10 contends that the image search function on Google is the equivalent of Google actually producing a web site of images. Since the images belong to Perfect 10, displaying them is copyright infringment. Part of the complaint seems also to revolve around a Google actually indexing and producing "text links" to sites where someone has copied their images and is redisplaying them. Perfect 10 has supplied a list of these URLs to Google and asked that they "remove the links". So, seems simple to me, Google blocks all those sites that have Perfect 10 content as listed by Perfect 10, including the the Perfect 10 site. End of problem....oh, unless they were sort of banking on Google links getting new customers.
So because the law says so, on your 18th birthday you suddenly become a perfectly responsible person and you know the consequences of everything you're doing?
(Sorry for the tongue-in-cheek)
No, you're expected to become increasingly responsible as you grow older; and it's your parent's legal responsiblity to make sure you do.
If you're 18, you've recieved at least 13 years of free education in mathematics, science, English composition, and rhetoric, all of which teach both formal reasoning and critical thinking as core components. You're better prepared to face the world today than at any other time in history, and you're being asked to face it at a much later age. If 13 years of comprehensive formal education hasn't made you ready to face the world's challenges, what will?
You're better educated by age 10 than the average peasant was during his entire liftetime during the last thousand years or so. My grandfather was expected to be a man, and provide for his family as head of the household at age twelve. (His father died early during a farm accident, and my grandfather was the oldest boy).
My dad, and all his brothers, worked construction jobs and gave the money to support the rest of the family all through high school. My Dad lived in a poor, remote, frigid corner of Canada, near Winnipeg. He had to walk to school (and take care of his little sister along the way; he was nine and she was seven), and when he got there, he was expected to light the wood stove if the was the first one in the school, and to fire up the coal oil lanterns. He remembers five year old kids driving grain trucks across the prairies, being called out of school during the fall for grain harvest. There's such a thing as being forced to grow up too fast, and theres such a thing as being unwilling to face up to your responsiblities.
Frankly, if you haven't learned to make responsible choices by age 18, you've been terribly neglient wich all the free opportunities you've been provided with. Kids today don't appreciate just how sheltered and pampered their daily lives today really are. At some point, they have to grow up, and join the adult world.
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AC