Google-Nudes; Just the Bare natured facts…

And in another newsworthy post: Yes, it’s true. Google wants photos of naked women. They want the fine-art nudes, the porno-nudes, and I’m sure they also want all of those freaky amateur nudes I’m told are scattered across the internet. More specifically, and of some concern, is that Google wants to have all such images stripped (haha – I made a pun!) of copyright protection so they can be included in their Google Images search engine. The most basic premise is that because of their relatively simple and often uncreative nature, these images, en masse, should not be subject to the same copyright protection that other ‘higher’ works enjoy. And without copyright protection, heck, Google could do anything they want with them, like further plastering them all across the Internet.

Trying to use a loophole in the fair use language, the CNET Reporter, Declan McCullagh writes in his interesting article that:

Google made the same argument in its ongoing lawsuit with Perfect 10, claiming the Web site’s high-quality nude images were not especially creative because its site “implies a factual nature of the photographs.”

Even some copyright scholars who are generally sympathetic to Google and the technology industry say that was a bit of a stretch.

Think about that: Nudes imply “a factual nature of the photographs”. I guess that’s like saying it depends on what your definition of “is” is. (As in: I don’t know what art or porn “IS”, but I know it when I see it.)

Oh, and about the photo: One of the truly eye-opening (read: fun) times I had while working on my San Francisco book was attending the Exotic Erotic Ball – complete with Press Pass. Yeah, I know; it was a tough job convincing me to do it – but I felt it was my duty to spare some other poor photographer the painful nature of this type of image-making.