Google's Weak Spot.

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Author: Edwards, Jim

Truth, Justice, etc.

Any marketer who offers online content has at one time worried, "How do I stop digital pirates and search engines from giving away my products for free?" One answer may be, act like a pornographer.

Last month, a California federal judge ruled against Google in a lawsuit filed by Perfect 10 magazine. Google had displayed small versions of Perfect 10's photographs in its search results, images the magazine was trying to keep for members only.

For those unfamiliar with the title, the judge described Perfect 10 as a magazine and Web site that "feature high quality, nude photographs of 'natural' models … P10 has invested $36 million to develop its brand … [including] $12 million spent to photograph over 800 models." Hence, the suit was "widely watched," according to last week's Adlaw By Request, a marketing law newsletter published by law firm Reed Smith, which we at Brandweek only read for the articles.

The judge's well-thumbed ruling--which fell open at the juiciest section--indicates that the adult business has been waging war to protect online content from folk offering feeds, searches and file swaps. Perfect 10 previously sued AdultCheck.com and Playboy has sued two other online providers to stop them from syndicating images.

That war has consequences: Perfect 10 sells its "thumbnails" to anyone who wants to download them as cellphone wallpaper. When the images showed up on Google, customers could just click and save them for free. Google argued it had the same rights to show the images that allow the media to briefly display copyrighted images in news stories.

After 49 pages of legal discussion (which we fast-forwarded through to get to the good part), the judge granted a partial injunction against Google. Oddly, the images mentioned in the ruling were available for free last week … via Google's image search.

PHOTO (COLOR): Things you won't be seeing soon: A California judge favors porn over Google.

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Edited by Jim Edwards