Perfect 10, Inc. v. Visa International Service Association
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
494 F.3d 788 (2007)
Perfect 10 (plaintiff) alleged that certain websites infringed its copyrighted model images by altering and selling them online, and after notifying Visa and other payment processors (defendants) of the infringing sites, the processors refused Perfect 10's request to stop processing payments for them, despite earning per-transaction fees and having user agreements barring services to merchants engaged in certain illegal activity. Perfect 10 sued Visa for secondary copyright infringement on contributory and vicarious theories; the district court dismissed for failure to state a claim, and Perfect 10 appealed.
Whether a payment-processing company may be held contributorily or vicariously liable for copyright infringement committed by merchants whose payments it processes.