Google in court for copying porno

A federal judge has ruled that portions of Google's popular image search feature, which displays small thumbnail versions of images found on other websites, are likely to violate US copyright law.

US District Judge A Howard Matz ruled on Friday that Perfect 10, an adult-oriented website featuring "beautiful natural women" in the nude, has shown that Google image search probably infringes copyright law "by creating and displaying thumbnail copies of its photographs".

The Los Angeles judge said he would award Perfect 10 a preliminary injunction against Google, and gave lawyers for both sides until 8 March to propose the injunction's wording.

Google said on Tuesday that it plans to appeal the injunction, and predicted it will have no effect on the "vast majority" of its image searches.

Perfect 10 sued Google for copyright infringement in November 2004, and then in August 2005, asked for an injunction to halt Google from allegedly copying, displaying and distributing more than 3,000 Perfect 10 photos.

The photo publisher says it's plagued by copyright pirates who pay its $25.50 monthly fee and then reproduce its copyright images on sites that are indexed by Google and incorporated in its image search feature.

In a 48-page opinion, Matz agreed that Google provides "an enormous public benefit". But, he said, "existing judicial precedents do not allow such considerations to trump" copyright law.

If Google offered only its traditional search feature, optimised for computers with desktop-size screens, the outcome might have been different. But the judge noted two differences: first, the search company apparently receives AdSense advertising revenue from some of the photo-pirating sites, and second, Google's image search has an option for mobile phones.

Google Mobile's image search option permits handheld devices to perform the identical search of more than two billion images, then save the scaled-down images for future reference. Those scaled-down images are similar to what Perfect 10 offers as a subscription service through UK-based Fonestarz and could, the court ruled, harm the market for Perfect 10's subscription-based image sales.

Matz wrote: "Google's thumbnail images are essentially the same size and of the same quality as the reduced-size images that [Perfect 10] licenses to Fonestarz."

In a telephone interview on Tuesday, Daniel Cooper, Perfect 10's general counsel, said: "Certainly the court found those two factors to be of interest. Overall we feel very good about it."

Google did win, however, on one key point. Matz said that the "framing" feature of the company's image search, which displays a thumbnail of the image above a rendering of the original page, did not directly infringe Perfect 10's copyright.

Google litigation counsel Michael Kwun said in a statement: "While we're disappointed with portions of the ruling, we are pleased with Judge Matz's favourable ruling on linking and other aspects of Google Image Search. We anticipate that any preliminary injunction will have no effect on the vast majority of image searches, and will affect only searches related to Perfect 10."

Friday's decision is only a preliminary one, and the next step is likely to be an appeal before the 9th Circuit. Unless the appeals court dismisses the case, a trial would have to be scheduled before a final decision - including the question of damages for copyright infringement - would be reached.

Amazon.com, which licenses technology from Google, has also been named as a defendant. The two cases have been consolidated, and Judge Matz said he would publish a second order dealing with Amazon's potential liability.

Declan McCullagh writes for CNET News.com