Second Life Experiences A Run On The Banks

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

from the keep-trying dept

Thu, Aug 9th 2007 3:14pm — Mike Masnick

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.

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Filed Under: porn, search engines, thumbnails
Companies: google, microsoft, perfect 10

15 Comments

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Jeff, 9 Aug 2007 @ 3:52pm

LEWL
Perfect 10 sucks anyway, GGG all the way, son.
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nate, 9 Aug 2007 @ 4:27pm

What a waste
...Me thinks the money could be better spent on producing more pictures of beautiful women...
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anonymous coward, 9 Aug 2007 @ 5:05pm

people still pay for porn? isn't that quaint...

between flickr amateurs, pornotube, torrents, and my own homemade stuff, i haven't paid for porn in years.
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- some dude, 9 Aug 2007 @ 5:15pm
  
  Re:
  could have done without hearing about your homemade stuff buddy...
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  - Mike4, 10 Aug 2007 @ 10:55am
    
    Re: Re:
    could have done without hearing about your homemade stuff buddy...
    
    Why can't you picture the comment coming from song hot young chick.
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  - Mike4, 10 Aug 2007 @ 10:55am
    
    Re: Re:
    could have done without hearing about your homemade stuff buddy...
    
    Why can't you picture the comment coming from some hot young chick.
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Buzz, 9 Aug 2007 @ 5:25pm

Amazing!
"...we're going to sue Ford for making their getaway car." -- That is the best line right there. People will find any reason to sue Google or Microsoft (I personally dislike Microsoft, but they do suffer a degree of unnecessary abuse). Whenever someone suffers a "loss", they aim their legal weapons at the rich corporations. Not only is the lawsuit less credible that way, the corporations probably have far superior lawyers on standby than the actual robbers do. That is a big lose/lose right there. ^_^
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Moi, 9 Aug 2007 @ 5:33pm

"That is a big lose/lose right there. ^_^
, unless its a viable reason for sueing, but come on why would you sue microsoft for the same thing you just lost to google over, wouldnt the judge just look at the google case and copy that :P
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- longbow (profile), 9 Aug 2007 @ 6:18pm
  
  Re:
  Pun intended?
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drjones78@gmail.com, 10 Aug 2007 @ 6:39am

You'd think
They would try and pick some easier targets.. some small time porn co, going after some of the most powerful corps in the tech industry doesnt really seem like the most brilliant tactic.

I'm sure MS's legal staff alone, dwarfs the amount of employees even working at Perfect 10, by many times..
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Angela, 10 Aug 2007 @ 8:33am

Is this any different from suing gun manufacturers as a mean of controling weapon violence?
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- Anonymous Coward, 10 Aug 2007 @ 10:50am
  
  Re:
  yes
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- drjones78, 10 Aug 2007 @ 11:04am
  
  Re:
  Yea... because the small people taking on the gun manufacturers are going to get much more public support and sympathy than a porn company complaining that MS/Google is helping people steal their "smut".
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Wonn Roppots, 26 Feb 2008 @ 4:22pm

What porn websites need to know.
First, the weblink to http://paparotsy.tripod.com is just educational, so you get an idea of what risks performer's take in porn. Second, as far as this poor magazine, they need to upgrade their security features so no one can right click and copy anything down from their site and no one can press print and copy their Copyrighted magazine material. All the porn sites need to add these new security features in order to protect their Copyrighted meterial. How are you going to have contracts with performers stating the material is used for a film or a magazine, then it gets cut into streams and imageries of just sex, with no script... pirateered all over online, tormenting the performer's images with lowgrade quality pirated unwanted exploitation, totally against performer contracts, totally against Copyrights. You can't stop the pirateers from exploiting and profitting, but to these mags and film cos... get the upgraded software for no right clicks and no print outs. You need to protect your material. It's ruining your profits, it's downgrading the quality of the original works, it's exploiting the performer's in ways far beyong the original works and it's slave labor law violations of non-pay to performers. It's horrible, horrible. Only the mags and film cos can stop their material from being stolen by pirateers, at least what hasn't already... by upgrading their sites. If you can right click and copy or print... your site needs some serious help, because no one is going to care about some porn magazine or porn site losing profits, and it's the performers that are tormented the most by this unwanted exploitation that is like slave labor. By the way, all the piracy, whether you care about porn or not, makes the reputation of the US look bad, so think about that when these greedy pirateers profit... it might be your reputation down the gutter. Have you thought about that?
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- alex, 1 Dec 2008 @ 4:43am
  
  Re: What porn websites need to know.
  Whenever someone suffers a "loss", they aim their legal weapons at the rich corporations. Not only is the lawsuit less credible that way, the corporations probably have far superior lawyers on standby than laptop batteries the actual robbers do. That is a big lose/lose right there.
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