Google has appealed two court decisions that could ban it and other search engines from operating image searches in Germany, a spokesman for the Internet giant said Thursday.

Last month a district court in Hamburg ruled in favor of two men who claim search engines that pull pictures from their Web sites infringe on their copyrights.

The complaints lodged by Michael Bernhard, a photographer, and Thomas Horn, who owns the rights to several frames of a comic called "Psykoman," resulted in a ruling that could oblige Google and three other search engines to stop displaying images — or gain permission to display each copyrighted picture.

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