In an article from Jaikumar Vijayan, which appeared on Computerworld on 9/1/09, it’s reported that a California jury determined web site hosting companies can be held liable for the illegal copyright and trademark infringement activities of their clients when the hosting companies were made aware of such infringement and still failed to take any action.
Content created by authors and released by publishers may be protected by trademark (e.g., trademarked processes or techniques, terminology, character names/likenesses, book series names, etc.) as well as copyright, so this case sets a legal precedent upon which authors and publishers can rely in fighting online piracy of their works.
See also: Internet Defamation, Author Platform And You.