Another ruling has arrived concerning Perfect 10’s ongoing litigation, and its case against Visa, Mastercard, and several other companies has, like its suit against Google, gone in the defendants’ favor.
Beyond that, things get a little murky, and as my knowledge of law doesn’t extend much beyond the show “Boston Legal,” we’ll turn to some more informed experts.
“The court’s opinion, though not perfect, laudably recognizes that a decision in Perfect 10’s favor would have opened potentially endless claims of liability against a wide range of potential defendants who simply do business with infringers,” writes Alfred Yen on the madisonian.net blog.
In a longer analysis, Eric Goldman addresses the full “hat trick of appeals,” and good old Google’s name comes up. “Financial service providers (FSPs) got a complete victory (12b6 dismissal), other support service providers (like ccBill) got significant protection, and Amazon/Google avoided direct copyright infringement but could be contributorily liable if they have sufficient involvement in the infringement (this liability is a little dicey, but we’ll see on remand).”
Goldman then continues, “[W]ading through the details shows just how problematic Ninth Circuit cyberlaw jurisprudence has become. The Ninth Circuit has chunked a few major Internet cases – Napster and Brookfield are two conspicuous examples – which has produced a long list of tortured subsequent precedent. . . . I think the law is still being decided case-to-case, substantially undercutting the precedential utility of this case.”
I can understand that, at least, and it also seems clear that all the companies named in Perfect 10’s suits are, for the time being, safe. Denny Crane.
