Perfect 10, Inc. v. Google, Inc.
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
508 F.3d 1146 (2007)
Perfect 10 (plaintiff) sold copyrighted nude-model images and sued Google (defendant) over its image-search engine, which stored and showed low-resolution thumbnail images on its own servers but did not host the full-size versions, which remained on third-party websites Google merely linked to. Perfect 10 alleged direct infringement of its display and distribution rights, plus contributory and vicarious infringement based on Google's links to full-size infringing images posted by others; the trial court enjoined Google's thumbnail creation and display but not its linking to full-size images, and both sides appealed.
Whether, under the server test for copyright infringement, an image has been 'displayed' if it appears on a user's screen and is fixed in a computer's memory, regardless of whose server actually stores it.