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.

Comments

Publicity

[dsginter]

This looks like a publicity stunt if I ever saw one. No, I won't provide a link, thankyouverymuch.

Re:Publicity

[KDan]

Is anyone else getting the feeling that this whole "Google is actually evil like Microsoft" theme could easily be the beginnings of a FUD campaign organised by - who else - Microsoft?

So far Google hasn't don't anything worthy of being called "evil". Seems like some people are just digging for anything at all that can be said against them.

Daniel

Re:Publicity

[Alex P Keaton in da]

It would be interesting to see the breakdown on people who are starting to dislike google. What percent are genuinely upset about their business practices, and what percent are upset that they are doing well (sort of like when a new band gets big, and the "original" fans say they have "sold out") No man! I heard of them first! Let me show you this receipt for a band t-shirt dated THREE days before the new song charted, dude!
There is a group of people who will never like any company or group that is succesful. And there will always be people who attack the leaders just because they are leading, whether it is the NY Yankees (I try not to be one of them, but alas, I live in Ohio and I am a Cleveland fan) or google.

Re:Publicity

[russotto]

Yeah, it's pretty rich for someone using the DMCA to accuse the receipient of such notices of being evil.

Re:Publicity

[pootypeople]

I'm completely with you. I went to the fuckedgoogle site that /. posted yesterday, and the guy who's writing that is just a crackpot. In one post he accused google of manipulating their stock price while SIMULTANEOUSLY saying they were going to have the biggest point loss in the history of the company. I'm sorry, but I fail to see why they'd manipulate their own stock price down.
And the privacy concerns? So they keep a record of searches. I don't care. They do so many that it's impossible for anyone to come up with useful data from google. All you'll be able to tell is that lots of people search for porn.
Microsoft earned its title of "most evil" because they single-mindedly destroy all of their competition through FUD and other BS. Google hasn't really gotten rid of any of their competition (Yahoo and MSN are still there--I can't really think of a "large" web portal that's not there anymore) and that doesn't seem to be their goal. Just to do what they do best. I certainly have heard more reporting of this than I've heard anyone I know complain about google. Usually when the media outlets are pushing something, it's a good idea to take it with a grain of salt.

offtopic- Kos at dailykos said yesterday that he thinks dailykos could become larger than slashdot, hits per day wise, before the end of the year--people called pullshit, but I'm really kind of interested now.

Re:robots.txt

[pootypeople]

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

Re:robots.txt

[NastyNate]

Then the suit should be filed against the websites illegally serving their copyrighted images, not Google.

Re:what's that word again?

[gowen]

So a porn publisher whose whole business is built on exploitation

Only if you take the axiom that "Porn = Exploitation". If you're not a social conservative, and believe that people should be allowed to show their tits for money if they want to, your analogy simply doesn't

I do things for money that I wouldn't ordinarily do. It's called "gainful employment".

Re:robots.txt

[varmittang]

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.

Re:robots.txt

[ciroknight]

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.

Re:Bad habits die hard...

[Spad]

It's more stupid than that.

They're suing Google for indexing images off *other* sites that are hosting their copyrighted images without permission. They basically want Google (and A9) to police their copyright for them.

Wayback machine has the previous list

[llamalicious]

Archive.org's cache of Google's Ten-Things list:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.google.com /corporate/tenthings.html

Re:robots.txt

[DoorFrame]

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."

Re:robots.txt

[bedroll]

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.

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

Enough already with this M$ comparision!

[twocents]

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 suspect something 'Darl' like is in play here.

[crovira]

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.)

Re:Exploited? Please

[Blkdeath]

How about all of the 18-24 year old girls who are too damn young to know any better or to think of the long-term consequences of their actions?

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.