On July 3, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a sharply divided opinion in Perfect 10, Inc. v. Visa International Service Assoc., 1 the latest in a long series of cases addressing the potential liability of third parties for on-line copyright infringements by their users.
Unlike several other recent high-profile decisions including Napster, 2 Grokster 3 and Perfect 10 v. Amazon.com, 4 which have provided a framework for imposing secondary liability in the on-line context, the majority opinion in Visa declared that the defendants in that case could have no liability for their users’ infringements under any circumstances, and affirmed the dismissal of the plaintiff’s claims under Rule 12(b)(6).
