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stories about: "perfect 10"
Legal Issues

Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick

Wed, May 20th 2009 3:16am


Filed Under:
copyright, dmca, safe harbors, thumbnails

Companies:
amazon, perfect 10



Perfect 10 Shot Down Again; Will It Finally Realize That Search Engines Aren't Liable For Photos?

from the it's-time-to-give-it-up dept

Porn magazine publisher Perfect 10 has spent tons of money on a long series of fruitless lawsuits against the operators of search engines. The issue is that people with access to Perfect 10 photos had put them online, and (of course) search engines indexed these and included them in their image search features. Perfect 10 insisted that, since these search engines showed thumbnails of the images, the search engines were liable for the infringement. Except that courts keep throwing these cases out. But, that hasn't stopped Perfect 10. However, all it has to show for it is another loss. In its lawsuit against Amazon, for Amazon's A9 search subsidiary, the court has tossed out the lawsuit, pointing out that the DMCA safe harbors clearly protect Amazon, while also highlighting a bunch of pretty basic mistakes that Perfect 10 made in filing the lawsuit (you would think, having filed so many similar lawsuits, that it would get the specifics right). At some point, the company needs to realize that these lawsuits aren't getting it very far.

23 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Legal Issues

Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick

Tue, Dec 4th 2007 12:44am


Filed Under:
copyright infringement, safe harbors, supreme court

Companies:
perfect 10



Supreme Court Tells Perfect 10 It Can't Blame Payment Processors For Copyright Infringement

from the let-me-explain-to-you-the-concept-of-safe-harbor dept

Perfect 10 was an "adult" magazine publisher who had trouble adjusting to the massive change in the market called "the internet," and has since gone on a rampage suing just about everyone for copyright infringement -- though, amusingly, it almost never seems to target those actually responsible for copyright infringement. The issue is that people took scans of images from Perfect 10's magazines and put them online. That is, without a doubt, copyright infringement. No one denies that. But there's no money in suing individual random people, so Perfect 10 went after those with money, starting with Google. Why Google? Well, because Google's image search results would show thumbnails of the images it found (though, of course, Google had no way of knowing they were infringing). Courts have ruled that simply showing a thumbnail in a search result is not infringement, so Perfect 10 contorted to make the case even more confusing, by saying it was the combination of the thumbnails and the fact that many of the sites hosting the scanned images showed Google Ads that was the problem. Luckily, after a lower court agreed with Perfect 10, the appeals court overturned the ruling. Despite this, Perfect 10 has gone on to sue others, including Microsoft with nearly identical charges to the Google case.

Even worse, Perfect 10 then tried to sue anyone who processed payments for the sites that hosted the infringing images, claiming that they were liable for copyright infringement as well. Of course, as is clearly stated in the law, and well supported in the case law, a service provider is not responsible for what its users do. Everyone knows this by now, but it didn't stop Perfect 10 who got slapped down in the lower courts, at the appeals court and now (finally) at the Supreme Court. Yes, the Supreme Court had to waste it's time deciding whether or not to take this case and wisely turned it down. At some point you would think that the folks at Perfect 10 would stop trying to sue everyone and start focusing on maybe changing its business model. Or is that too difficult?

9 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Legal Issues

Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick

Thu, Aug 9th 2007 3:14pm


Filed Under:
porn, search engines, thumbnails

Companies:
google, microsoft, perfect 10



Porn Publisher Suing Microsoft, Despite Losing To Google Over Identical Charges

from the keep-trying dept

Three years ago, porn magazine publisher Perfect 10 sued Google for copyright infringement. The case was a strange one. Google's image search was showing thumbnails of Perfect 10's images, but courts have ruled that thumbnails are fair use in search engines. The real complaint from Perfect 10 was that other sites were taking the images from their magazines and putting them online -- and that Google was helping people find them. In other words, the real copyright infringement was being done by others, but Perfect 10 was suing Google because Google has a lot more money and was an easier target. After some back and forth in the courts, an appeals court finally ruled in favor of Google. Oddly, despite this loss, Perfect 10 has gone out and sued Microsoft for the exact same thing. Once again, it's suing the wrong party -- and even admits it, saying that "it's absolutely hopeless" to find those actually responsible for the infringement, so it's suing Microsoft instead. That's like saying it's absolutely hopeless to find the bank robbers, so we're going to sue Ford for making their getaway car. Perfect 10 also complains that its business is being destroyed -- which is probably true. However, that's the result of a bad business model and not being able to adjust to the changing market. It may suck for Perfect 10 that it doesn't know how to run a modern business, but it's not against the law.

15 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Legal Issues

Legal Issues

by Carlo Longino

Mon, Jul 9th 2007 7:23pm


Filed Under:
copyright, lawsuit

Companies:
google, perfect 10



Another Pointless Perfect 10 Suit Gets Shot Down

from the smacked dept

Porn publisher Perfect 10 has been something of a copyright gadfly. It sued Google, arguing that the thumbnail images showed in its Image Search -- of images posted online by other people -- of Perfect 10's copyrighted materials constituted copyright infringement. Despite earlier rulings that linking to images in such a way wasn't infringement, Perfect 10 won an injuction over Google, although another court later overturned it, emphasizing again that thumbnails fall under fair use. But Perfect 10 filed an even sillier suit, targeting companies that processed payments for porn sites it alleged were stealing its images. Again, like in the Google case, the payment companies had nothing to do with the act of copyright infringement, and now an appeals court has upheld a lower court's ruling that bounced the case out of court, nothing that the payment companies, indeed, had not contributed to any copyright infringement. Perfect 10's strategy of suing everybody but the actual copyright infringers looks like it's been resoundly defeated, but somehow it's hard to imagine we've heard the last of the company.

5 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
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Monday

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4:20am: ESPN Writer Suspended From Twitter (59)
2:10am: School Can't Handle Critical Community Message Board; Sends Legal Nastygram (21)

Friday

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6:10pm: EFF Looks To Bust Bogus Podcasting Patent; Needs Prior Art (34)
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8:33am: Murdoch's The Times Accused Of Blatant Copying, Just As It Tells The World You Should Pay For News (27)
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