Response from Norm to Mac & Bumble
 

"Google is currently displaying without authorization hundreds of
thousands, if not millions, of images from Perfect 10, Playboy,
Macandbumble.com, Hegre Archives, and other major copyright holders, in
an attempt to attract massive traffic and generate huge advertising
revenues. In the process, it is directly competing with, and
supplanting all legitimate pay sites, as there is no reason for
consumers to pay to join paysites when they can see hundreds of
thousands of images for free by going to Google.com and viewing images
via Google's image search.

Perfect 10 has been trying for years to stop massive theft on the
internet, which is drastically affecting the income of all legitimate
players. Perfect 10 has sent to Google 40 DMCA notices covering about
10,000 infringing URLs since May 31, 2004. To the best of Perfect 10's
knowledge, Google has NEVER acted to block access to such infringing
URLs, and has in most cases actually ADDED links to such URLs and in
many cases, starting placing ads on such infringing webpages. Google
currently places ads next to infringing images of every major celebrity
and supermodel -- millions of unauthorized copyrighted images.

On December 22, 2005, Perfect 10 sent to Google a DMCA notice, its 40th
DMCA notice since May of 2004. In that notice, Perfect 10 listed some of
the URLs below images that Google was displaying without authorization,
some of which were the URLs of Macandbumble.com affiliates. The notice
was directed at GOOGLE, and was intended for GOOGLE to remove those
images from its unauthorized display. However, Google elected to (we
believe) intentionally misinterpret the notice to start affecting
Macandbumble.com affiliates without providing them with the ability to
file counternotifications. I have emailed to Google a list of the
Macandbumble.com affiliated URLs listed in Perfect 10's December 22
notice and Google now knows that those URLs are not alleged to be
infringing.

I am sorry for the confusion and I hope that my email to Google will
correct any misunderstanding on Google's part. Hopefully all legitimate
webmasters will understand that if Perfect 10 succeeds in its efforts to
stop widespread infringement on the internet, all legitimate webmasters
will benefit enormously.

Sincerely,

Norm Zada, Ph.D.
PERFECT 10

Good response to a serious issue.

40 notices.. wow..

In general, we support Norm's fight to reduce copyright infringement. It's just unfortunate that some of M&B's own URLs as well as some of our affiliates got caught up in this.

But our affiliates need to know that we're going to stick up for them when they're using our content to promote Mac & Bumble within our T&C.

hrmm ... this sounds a bit better then all the mess that we heard about...

I think one thing content producers need to understand is the potential liability Google has on this. Google has really pushed the envelope with Google Images, Google Books, etc. I'm not sure if they've stepped over the copyright line or not, but they're sure taking A LOT of (in my opinion) unnecessary risks..

Interesting explaination. Thanks for the follow up.

LOL, Norm's spent years trying to make life difficult for everyone he can, legitimate or not.

I never promoted you and never used images not liscenced, yet my url is removed from serps. And mines been gone since 04 sometime.

Thanks for your effectiveness.

big E!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MAJOR kudos to Norm and Perfect10 for taking a strong, proactive stance against the rampant copyright infringement that dominates the industry these days.

Although I understand a few webmaster toes were unintentionally stepped on in the process - overall, Norm's action against Google is great news for those of us producers and photographers who constantly suffer loss of livelihood at the hands of organizations such as Google (and Yahoo, as well). Accountability has to start somewhere...and I quite agree this may help to set beneficial precedents for us all in the future.


Silent Knight

Kastle Archives Productions Inc.

He's got a Ph.D in the Internets. He knows what he's talking about. :winkwink:

Thanks Big E :thumbsup

Norm is a fucking lunatic
this reply sounds so noble when in case it's not. It's all about him, not about M&B or some affiliate.
Don't be stupid guys...
get real

the problem is the damage has already been done.. and will continue to be done by filing dmca complaints.. isn't there a way to file a dmca complaint about google itself ?

If the dmca's only affected the pages and content that was in question , that would be one thing , but its clear just by knowing how google works , you cant just re-include something like that.. ( maybe google can , but i wouldnt count on them doing that )

I would be interested in hearing from people who feel their serp's have been affected along with the pages in question , just to see if they are being penalized using known methods..

It's good that we have a few noble copyright protectors taking on the big corporate giants! My support is behind you!

you're an idiot without a clue
did you even read the threads?
the idiot got pages removed from google, causing loss of income for honest webmasters.
They should sue him for loss of income because those totally random DCMA letters he is sending
he is fighting for himself
this idiot is not a noble copyright protector, he is a rich idiot with too much time on his hands.

I'm going to guess that you simply don't have any idea how he operates. Otherwise you'd realize that's the most idiotic thing you could have said.

thanks Kimmy
I thought I was the only one with a clue here
last thing anyone would want to happen is Norm getting a nobleman image on GFY lol

i dont agree at all. This doesnt "protect" producers and photographers from copyright infriingement .. all it does it create a process wherin a company would have to constantly scan and report sites to google for something that is wrong to begin with. ( google copying copyright images and serving them )

what google should do is make a watermark to put on any picture that a webmaster might want to allow to be on google images.. not a reverse inclusion

Yep, that's right. Its a very idiotic thing to stand up in support of copyrights. How silly of me.

Unless you care to steer me straight here.

Someone so worried about protecting business should do his homework before hurting other people.

Nice to know that Mac & Bumble sticks up for its affilitiates. Great work, Big E!

You aren't standing up in support of copyrights. You're standing up for one man's egotistical decision to spend his free time and a decent portion of his considerable bucks to attempt to fuck up other peoples businesses.

He doesn't care who owns the copyright on an image. If he's got an image similar to it, of the same person, or even woke up thinking about an image or a pseudo-celeb, then he claims to have the right to protect all these images. From anyone on the internet, including legal copyright holders.

I'm not in favor of copyright infringement. I've shut off people's billing accounts and hosting accounts in the past for failing to remove images when the DMCA's were properly done and not responded to, or not responded to correctly.

Before you start running off at the mouth with me on this issue, do a little research.

Hate to say this, but with the financial paowe base that google has, nothing will happen in the near future to stop this.

If you've got issues against this guy, that's yours to deal with. I have neither the time nor the inclination to spend "researching" the fucking guy's biography.

Its obvious you're already an expert on all this - so "running off at the mouth" would be rather pointless.

Your words don't change my support one iota of someone who takes action against Google for copyright infringement. Fine, so the guy's cheese has slid off the cracker a little. I won't condemn him because of it.

Calling me an idiot for expressing my supportive opinion of his actions against Google isn't exactly the best way of bending a sympathetic ear to your opinions.

Google shows thumbnails, and I get some decent google image traffic. Why would you want to shutdown the image traffic google sends you ?

I don't need your sympathy, nor do I really care. I don't build sites so nothing of mine got shut down.

I don't know about other people, but I tend to view both Google and Yahoo in the same light. The images are not theirs to do with as they please. Whether they contribute to traffic or not (and in our case the traffic is insignificant at most)...the point is - its not their call to make.

In the case of Yahoo, they've made revenue both directly and indirectly from our original images for many years without our permission. People illegally reposted our content on their Yahoo groups (and Clubs, before that)...and Yahoo was then able to sell print services on those same images.

Two Yahoo groups in particular (that we knew of) ripped hundreds of images from our pay sections and filled their groups with them, thus providing free access to our content and quite possibly dissuading surfers from possibly paying for membership. Result - potential loss of livelihood to us.

When we went to the time and effort to file DMCA complaints against them, it resulted in Yahoo deleting OUR Yahoo group and terminating our member accounts. No reason was given. Our group obeyed Yahoo's TOS and contained only our own original copyrighted content.