Porn producers Perfect 10 [NSFW] filed a lawsuit against Google last year. Yesterday, Agence France-Presse reported that Google's use of the porn web site's images in thumnail pictures consitutes copyright infringement, according to US District Judge Howard Matz. Judge Matz's ruling reportedly stated that "because Google receives advertising money from offering search functions, it is not entitled to the same level of free use of the images as other entities would be," providing further definition around the legal concept of "fair use." Furthermore, Matz reportedly considered the Google thumbnails harmful to Perfect 10's business, which apparently offers small images for cell-phone viewing.

Agence France-Presse also sued Google last year over the search engine's use of AFP's news and photos. Google dropped AFP from its news index shortly thereafter.