Perfect 10 Still Not Giving Up In Lawsuit Against Google

Legal Issues

from the an-a-for-effort dept

Back in May, when a court shot down yet another of porn publisher Perfect 10’s lawsuits against web search engines, we wondered if the publisher would finally realize that Google is not liable for what its image search engine finds. Yet, the company doesn’t seem interested in giving up. It’s claiming that Google abused the discovery process and failed to hand over important materials, including its “DMCA log.” At issue is the fact that some people out there had used unauthorized images from Perfect 10 on their own websites, and Google’s image search found them. Perfect 10 first tried to claim Google itself was guilty of copyright infringement for displaying those images, but eventually the courts realized that displaying a thumbnail of an image from another website in a search result is not, nor should it be, considered copyright infringement.

Of course, this particular statement is pretty amusing:

“Google appears to have the view that it is above the law,” says Perfect 10 President, Dr. Norm Zada.

That’s a funny comment for someone who’s been losing pretty much every lawsuit. It seems that the courts have thought all along that Google was very much within the letter and spirit of the law.

In this case, Perfect 10 is now trying to stretch what the DMCA requires of a recipient of a DMCA notice, saying:

“Under the DMCA, a search engine such as Google may receive limited immunity from monetary damages for copyright infringement if it complies with the requirements of the DMCA,” Zada says. “The search engine must act expeditiously to remove or disable access to infringing material upon receiving notice of infringement from the copyright owner, and it must adopt a procedure so that copyright holders will not have to provide the search engine with notices about the same infringing material or the same infringers over and over.”

The first part is true. The latter part is not true. However, it’s the latter part that Perfect 10 seems to be relying on, demanding its “DMCA log” which is apparently “a spreadsheet-type document summarizing DMCA notices received, the identity of the notifying party and the accused infringer, and the actions (if any) taken in response.” Considering Google has a pretty long history of quickly responding to DMCA complaints, it’s difficult to believe that it would somehow not adhere to the DMCA in this case. Once again, it seems likely that Perfect 10 is going to end up on the losing side of a court battle. If only it actually put this much effort into actually building a business.

Filed Under: copyright, discovery, dmca
Companies: google, perfect 10