A California federal court judge has held that Google's image search engine violated some copyrights held by a pornography Web site by displaying 'thumbnails' of images from the site.
U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz ruled in favor of Perfect 10, a Beverly Hills-based site that publishes pornographic photos. It said that Google's display of free thumbnails could harm Perfect 10's ability to sell thumbnails or small versions of its photos to cell phone users.
'The court reaches this conclusion despite the enormous public benefit that search engines such as Google provide,' Matz held in his 47-page decision.
Judge Matz gave Perfect 10 and Google until March 8 to submit wording for a preliminary injunction that would bar the use of thumbnail images from search engines.
The holding in the case is fairly narrow as the court denied Perfect 10's request to bar Google from linking to third party Web sites that contain Perfect 10 images. Many Web sites have profited from Google sending customers to their sites after viewing thumbnail photos in the image search engine.
Lawyers for Perfect 10 were confident they would win the entire case. 'We feel when all the evidence comes out, we are confident that we are ultimately going to prevail on that as well,' said Daniel Cooper, general counsel for Perfect 10.
Meanwhile, the full implications of the court's decision for Google and other search engines has yet to be determine. Google's lawyers have not said whether they would appeal the decision.
