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.

A California publisher of a pornographic magazine and Web site sued Visa, MasterCard and other financial institutions on Wednesday, alleging they facilitated the illegal sale of pirated sex images flooding the Internet.



Perfect 10, whose slogan is “The World’s Most Beautiful Models Expose All,” based the case on claims other Web sites were stealing their sexual imagery to make money, often through duplicitous advertising.



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