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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"
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."
--
RumorsDaily
Replace Google with Napster and Perfect 10 with the RIAA. Is this really such an open and shut case in favor of Google?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?