A lawyer who represents more than one dozen of famous women whose private photographs were leaked on the Internet by hackers threatened to sue Google for not removing the images of their sites, according to a newspaper.
Martin Singer, a lawyer for the entertainment industry, said in a letter to Google that “was making millions and benefit from the victimization of women” and could be responsible for up to 100 million dollars in damages, the New York Post reported.
The letter didn’t say which celebrities represent Singer.
“Google knows that the images are stolen property, private and confidential pictures and videos illegally released by perverts predators who are violating the privacy rights of victims and obtained basic human decency”, Singer said, according to the Post.
Singer could not be reached immediately to confirm the letter. Google did not answer an email or return a phone call for comment.
Singer said he sent multiple notices from the Google digital copyright law, called Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which requires ISPs to remove copyright material on request, according to the report.
The lawyer said that while other sites like Twitter had complied with the orders and taken photographs, even those showing in Google search results, as well as YouTube and other sites.
Singer demanded that Google immediately remove all images. Also requested the Internet giant keep records linked to images “pending citations in next/pending demands”, according to the newspaper.
Several celebrities, including actresses Jennifer Lawrence and Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Sports Illustrated model Kate Upton, had private photos stored in their accounts Apple Cloud -iCloud- that were stolen and posted on popular websites including Reddit and 4chan since early September.