In what could be a setback for search engines, a Los Angeles federal judge has ruled in favor of the adult magazine Perfect 10 concerning an injunction it demanded against Google Images use of thumbnails portraying images copyrighted by the magazine. The thumbnails were picked by Google's algorithm from websites that had pirated the photos from Perfect 10's website and not taken from Perfect 10 directly.

Perfect 10 complained that these pirates were cannibalizing its business model by allowing people to see the images without paying the monthly fee to the magazine. The adult publication was particularly concerned about Google Mobile's image search, which allows users to search over 2 billion images and save them on mobile devices for later viewing.

This practice is especially damaging for Perfect 10 where it provides a subscription based mobile service in the UK.

However, it was ruled that a contested feature of Google images called the "framing," which displays thumbnails in the top banner of the original page on which the image was published, does not breach copyright laws.

Source: News.com