February 23, 2006
Google Loses Copyright Infringement Case
(Los Angeles) Google will be prevented from displaying certain copyrighted thumbnail images according to a U.S. District Court ruling on Friday.
From Breitbart.com:
Internet giant Google Inc. infringed copyright rules by posting thumbnail-size photos from other websites on its search results pages, a US judge said in a ruling issued.
US District Judge Howard Matz's ruling, handed down in Los Angeles, stems from a lawsuit filed in 2004 by the pornography firm Perfect 10 Inc., which accused Google of breaching on its copyrights.
The type of search with which Perfect 10 took issue is Google's "Image Search" function, which returns a page with tiny images -- known as thumbnails -- that fit the searcher's query.
The image search function also allows searchers to view the image as it appears on the page.
The judge ruled that because Google receives advertising money from offering search functions, it is not entitled to the same level of free use of the images as other entities would be.
Both sides in the case were instructed to craft the wording for a preliminary injunction barring Google from using the thumbnail-size images. Notably, the ruling applies only to images owned by the Perfect 10 company. For now, that is.
As the godfather of search engines, I would speculate that Google will be taken to court on a fairly regular basis.
From Interested-Participant.
Posted by: Mike Pechar at
08:22 AM
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1
This is one fascinating and wacky case - and another good reason why lawyers should be shot.
A search engine is in a way like a Yellow Pages - this is how people find you and do business.
With Yellow Pages you pay to be listed - with search engines your listing is free - the engine gets revenues from general advertising and priority listings.
Goggle can now (if they want to be a prick and now go for the really big money) - drop the image feature and look for ways to delist/block virtually everybody (especially businesses) from appearing on a search - unless the pay something for the privilage of being listed. They already have a system to prioritize listings.
I'm gonna love to see how this plays out.
Posted by: hondo at February 23, 2006 12:43 PM (fyKFC)
2
Well, the difference is, people request to be put in the yellow pages, I believe. They did not request to be put on google - so if they wish they can sue to remove their listings from there.
If google wishes, they can offer an all-or-nothing deal. That is what I would do in their place if I thought I could get away with it - either we get to show your images or your website just won't be listed.
Posted by: MiB at February 23, 2006 01:32 PM (tFcEO)
3
Agreed. If they can get away with that - then I would invest the farm on Goggle!
Interesting circle! You request to be put in the yellow pages in order to be found and do business - a business goes on the net to do what? Be invisible? Unlisted?
Its actually a funny suit - rates up there with warnings for coffee cups - contents can be hot.
Posted by: hondo at February 23, 2006 01:54 PM (fyKFC)
4
You can choose to be on google or not, there are numerous ways from embedding:
meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" in headers or creating a robots.txt in your web root with
User-agent: googlebot
Disallow: *
inside, which would tell google to not crawl.
You could also use the apache module mod_rewrite to ensure that the HTTP_REFERRER string is set to your domain on images (which is how most sites protect themselves from hotlinking) you would specifically have to allow images.google.com to crawl.
As usual some seventy year old incontinent judge that cannot even use AOL, listened to this company try and hit a home run for cash and has no clue this company could have prevented google from not only coming to their page, but also stop them making thumbnails of their images.
Typical.
Posted by: dave at February 23, 2006 09:42 PM (CcXvt)
5
Whoa! Good info - I wasn't aware how easy it would be with a good IT man. This company must be some nickel and dime operation or hustlin' for a quick buck.
Why a company would want to go on the net for sales, then turn around and not want to have customers linked to them by a search engine is freakin' absurb! Think you nailed it with the judge!
Posted by: hondo at February 24, 2006 12:17 AM (fyKFC)
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