Piracy hits Web
voyeurism
Adam Tanner
THE
Internet piracy has devastated the music business, threatened the movie
industry and may now undercut one of the most ‘successful’ corners
of the Web — pornography.
Perfect 10, a California
publisher of a pornographic magazine and Website sued Visa, MasterCard
and other financial institutions last week, alleging they facilitated
the illegal sale of pirated sex images flooding the Internet.
It based the case on
claims other Websites were stealing their sexual imagery to make money,
often through duplicitous advertising.
In a complaint filed in
the US District Court for Northern California, the firm sued Visa
International, First Data Corp., Cardservice International, MasterCard
International, Humboldt Bank and Does 1-100.
"The defendants in
this case ... are knowingly providing crucial transactional support
services for the sale of millions of stolen photos and film clips worth
billions of dollars that belong to Perfect 10 and third-parties,"
the suit reads.
The complaint says these
firms have made large sums from the sale of pirated erotica and thus
should have a responsibility for any related copyright violation.
"Perfect 10 has
concluded that the only way to stop the proliferation of such Websites
is to go to the top, namely the payment card associations and the
primary third-party processor, each of which is knowingly and
effectively acting as fences for the sale of billions of dollars of
stolen content," the lawsuit reads.
MasterCard officials did
not return calls for comment. A Visa spokesman said he was unable to
find company legal experts for their response.
The publisher of Perfect
10, Norman Zada, said in an interview that he had lost $ 29 million
since setting up his business in 1996, including $ 8 million on legal
fees. He said the problem was that he was spending thousands of dollars
for nude photography sessions while many Internet sites were stealing
his and other images.
"The reason it was so
hard to make money is because while we were paying for our content,
there were many Websites out there that were competing against us that
were stealing theirs," said Zada whose business is based in Beverly
Hills. "It’s pretty impossible to compete in that
situation."
The problem of Internet
piracy has hit the bottom lines of many businesses, with the recording
industry, Hollywood and software businesses the most prominent.
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