This piece caught my eye tonight:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
Adult Site Loses Copyright Claim Over Stolen Images
by Glen Shapiro
Law & Tax News
The publisher behind the adult website and magazine Perfect 10 has lost his case against credit card firms such as Visa, Mastercard and First Data Corp over claims that the firms facilitated the theft of copyrighted images from his site, it emerged this week.
Norman Zada had argued that the credit card companies knowingly provided "crucial transactional support services" for the illegal sale of images and film clips worth "billions of dollars".
However, delivering his judgement in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, Judge James Ware ruled that:
"To have engaged in contributory copyright infringement, it is not sufficient for the Defendants to merely have contributed to the general business of the infringer."
He went on to add that:
"The ability to process credit cards does not directly assist the allegedly infringing web sites in copying [Perfect 10's] works,” concluding:
"Defendants do not provide the means for distributing those works to others, nor do they provide bandwidth or storage space with which to transfer or store the works.”
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
(emphasis added)
This would seem to be a case that could be juxtaposed into the debate about payment processors and online payment systems processing accounts for offshore gaming. Despite its overall unpopularity among legislators (to say nothing of entrenched interests in Vegas, AC and other domestic gambling areas) there is no real question as to the fact that online gambling is legal, and no serious person believes that it will ever be legally prohibited for people to post up, no matter how much the state might disapprove of it. On the other hand, copyright infringement is a clear issue in almost every country on earth, yet the judiciary is saying that Visa et al. bear no culpability for the actions of merchants who happen to offer copyrighted material illegally.
Food for thought.
Phaedrus
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
Adult Site Loses Copyright Claim Over Stolen Images
by Glen Shapiro
Law & Tax News
The publisher behind the adult website and magazine Perfect 10 has lost his case against credit card firms such as Visa, Mastercard and First Data Corp over claims that the firms facilitated the theft of copyrighted images from his site, it emerged this week.
Norman Zada had argued that the credit card companies knowingly provided "crucial transactional support services" for the illegal sale of images and film clips worth "billions of dollars".
However, delivering his judgement in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, Judge James Ware ruled that:
"To have engaged in contributory copyright infringement, it is not sufficient for the Defendants to merely have contributed to the general business of the infringer."
He went on to add that:
"The ability to process credit cards does not directly assist the allegedly infringing web sites in copying [Perfect 10's] works,” concluding:
"Defendants do not provide the means for distributing those works to others, nor do they provide bandwidth or storage space with which to transfer or store the works.”
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
(emphasis added)
This would seem to be a case that could be juxtaposed into the debate about payment processors and online payment systems processing accounts for offshore gaming. Despite its overall unpopularity among legislators (to say nothing of entrenched interests in Vegas, AC and other domestic gambling areas) there is no real question as to the fact that online gambling is legal, and no serious person believes that it will ever be legally prohibited for people to post up, no matter how much the state might disapprove of it. On the other hand, copyright infringement is a clear issue in almost every country on earth, yet the judiciary is saying that Visa et al. bear no culpability for the actions of merchants who happen to offer copyrighted material illegally.
Food for thought.
Phaedrus
