Copyright’s Fair Use Doctrine: The Latest Chapter

While recognizing the enormous public benefit that search engines like Google provide, a California federal court nevertheless granted a plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction against the Internet search giant from creating and displaying thumbnail versions of the plaintiff’s copyrighted photos in Google’s image search results. The plaintiff, Perfect 10, Inc., did not enjoy a complete victory, however, because the Court denied Perfect 10’s motion to enjoin Google from linking to third-party websites that host and serve infringing full-size images, finding that Google cannot be held liable where the infringing work is not displayed from its own servers.¹

Perfect 10, an adult entertainment publisher, sued Google and Amazon.com, Inc. for copyright infringement. Perfect 10 later filed a motion seeking injunctive relief, asking the Court to order Google and Amazon to stop displaying thumbnail images of Perfect 10 models in its image search results and to also stop