The company, Perfect 10, previously lost a similar suit seeking
injunctions against Google and Amazon.com and its subsidiary search
engine, A9.com, over alleged copyright infringement, but Perfect 10
is appealing that decision.
The latest suit, filed in U.S. District Court, Central District
of California, alleges that Microsoft's MSN image search feature
creates unauthorised thumbnails of content owned by Perfect 10 and
includes links to see full-size versions of the images for
free.
The suit also says Microsoft's MSN search engine can find
passwords that have been improperly posted on other websites and
enable access to Perfect 10's website. Microsoft also takes
advertising money from websites that have stolen Perfect 10 images,
according to the lawsuit.
Norm Zada, president of Perfect 10, told infoworld.com that
Microsoft had rejected efforts to reach a settlement. Zada said
Microsoft's search engine, as well as those of Google and
Amazon.com, have caused his company to lose $4 million a month.
Perfect 10 recently closed its magazine after 10 years in print due
to images being available for free online, which were easy to find
through searches, he added.
"Our business is being destroyed," Zada said. "This is a life
and death battle for us." Perfect 10 sued between 20 to 25 websites
that it alleges were stealing its content, but "it's
absolutely hopeless. A lot of these people are in Russia or China,"
Zada said. Instead, Zada said he holds the search engines
responsible for making it easy to find infringing content.
For a time, it looked as if Perfect 10 might prevail in its
claim against Google and Amazon.com. In February, a judge ruled
that Google and Amazon.com could be partially liable for
infringement for displaying the thumbnails.
However, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned most of
that decision in May, citing fair-use principles and the benefits
that search engines provide to the general public.
The court also found full-size images from websites are not
stored by Google, and the company's search service merely directs a
user's browser to third-party websites.
Zada said Perfect 10 is appealing the Ninth Circuit's decision,
but no court date has been scheduled yet.
