Google Inc.'s image search service violates the copyrights of adult magazine and Web publisher Perfect 10 Inc. by displaying thumbnail-sized photographs, a federal judge has ruled. However, Google is likely not responsible for displaying the underlying images from Perfect 10's Web site, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California said in a ruling last week that was made public on Tuesday.
The order could effectively bar Google from featuring thumbnail pictures -- small versions of photos that are linked to a bigger version of the same picture -- but not limit Google from linking to actual photos which exist on other Web sites. The judge accepted that people who click on full-size images from Perfect 10 are not viewing images that Google has stored or served up on its computers but links to other sites.
News source: Reuters
