I think this is ultimately going to be one of those you-can't-put-the-Genie-back stories, but Perfect 10 -- which describes itself as a "publisher of tasteful model and supermodel images" -- is not happy. It's not a perfect summer for them.
Perfect 10 is once again suing a search engine. This time it's suing Microsoft for copyright infringement, saying the software giant's MSN Search engine displays thumbnails of pirated versions of Perfect 10's copyrighted pictures in search results, and that those results include links to the full-size pirated pictures.
It's similar to a suit that that company pursued three months ago, against Google and Amazon. Our sister site
internetnews.com, quoted Perfect 10's president, Norm Zada, who said:
"Microsoft is showing tens of thousands of extremely valuable celebrity images, along with Perfect 10 images, without authorization, which it obtains from hundreds if not thousands of pirate websites.
"Search engines could greatly reduce infringement if they would simply delist obvious infringers upon receiving notice, and stop copying and linking to copyrighted works without permission, but that would adversely affect their revenue," Zada said.
Later in the story, Zada said: "In the end, I firmly believe that those who knowingly profit from the theft of billions of dollars of other people's property will lose."
It remains to be seen, but Zada's contention is far from perfect, and I think he'll lose this one -- just like Hollywood will never stop people from finding ways of downloading music (and movies) and getting around the scourge of digital rights management.
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