Every Inch Counts: Porn Filesharing Lawsuits Crest 30K Defendants

By | November 8, 2010, 3:19pm PST

Summary: New lawsuits emerging from the porn industry could also result in mass shakedowns of file sharers of mainstream video content.

America’s pornography business has been cast as an industry quick to co-opt new technologies to keep its profit margins larger than the average guy’s. However, when DVD sales plummeted by 50% in 2009 and torrent sites emerged as a factor in limp revenues, mainstream porn faced a new kind of shrinkage: porn needed a little blue pill, or a bailout. So, what new hot tech innovation is set to get porn back in the black?

Holy huge file sharing lawsuits, Batman!

Last Monday saw numbers skyrocket in porn’s war against piracy and torrent sites when four porn companies filed suits in California to target 9,055 alleged file sharers. That was a week after director Axel Braun filed in West Virginia to sue 7,098 alleged pirates for one film, Batman XXX: A Porn Parody.

This is not to be confused with the seven West Virginia suits filed in late September, suing 5,469. That was just before three porn companies came together to file against 1,100 alleged torrent pirates in Chicago. None of these were filed in conjunction with Hustler/Larry Flynt Production’s now-total of four lawsuits for This Ain’t Avatar XXX, with its own defendant total of 7164.

Let me be the first girl to look at the exploding number of defendants and admit that I’ve truly never seen something so big. Neither has the Electronic Frontier Foundation, whose Cindy Cohn told me by phone that the sheer numbers in each filing were themselves unprecedented — whereas, “The RIAA sued around 20,000 people over a number of years; this is an order of magnitude bigger.”

Braun, like many of his co-plaintiffs, sees no reason to hold anything back in order to do what he sees as protecting his investments. Via email he told me, “F**k ‘em all. I’m suing everybody.”

No one wants to be named and shamed over alleged theft of anything called Danielle Staub Raw or Relax He’s My Stepdad 2. However, Batman XXX was a cult hit. In evidence, the YouTube trailer (safe for work):

Triple-X bat-campiness notwithstanding, an avalanche of lawsuits soon to exceed 30,000 defendants filed in less than two months suggests the emergence of a cottage industry – one that raises a lot of serious questions.

The porno lawsuit gold rush: Super size my DMCA

It’s become plain that mass filings over piracy are now part of the economic equation for adult companies. In the middle of lawsuit filings, a select group of adult industry reps (and their lawyers) met in Arizona at an exclusive Content Protection Retreat. Embracing the abbreviation of CPR as a secondary meaning, it was positioned as, “…all about breathing new life into something that might otherwise die. In this case, what we’re trying to ‘resuscitate’ is nothing less than the profitability of the adult entertainment industry.”

Aside from Hustler’s legal team, three entities emerged as porn’s white-knight lawsuit filing factories: Media Copyright Group, Copyright Enforcement Group and Adult Copyright Company had offers that Big Porn just couldn’t refuse. Until then, going after alleged illegal downloaders was a process that was costly, timely and complicated, requiring experienced IP legal teams and software voodoo that most adult enterprises simply didn’t understand.

Sensing a gold rush, companies like ACC offer a one-stop shop where porn copyright holders are offered a contingency-based engagement: no money down, “no expense to rights holders,” they do all the work. ACC alone now represents 8 cases; MCC has filed six suits and claims a dozen clients. Here, Big Porn just signs the bottom line and waits, sits back, enjoys the beautiful stock photography on the copyright lawsuit farmers’ websites, and ostensibly collect the spoils when “infringers pay for their theft.”

It’s not just the “making them pay” part that worries the EFF, who is working on a defendant brief in one of the cases. The EFF has long been against lumping thousands of defendants together in single complaints, and Cindy Cohn reminded me that they’d worked on RIAA claims only to watch the music industry abandon the practice of monetization based on suing fans because ultimately, “it didn’t work.”

Cohn tells me, “Now we have a situation where they’re taking the idea of mass infringement and turning it into a business model for bottom feeders.” Indicating the legal front end of the porn suits, Cohn sees the copyright teams “cutting corners” and casts doubt on whether the lawyers are experienced IP attorneys.

Page 2: [Suing and shaming: A shakedown, or just happy to see me?]  »

Topics

Violet Blue is a Forbes Web Celeb, SF Appeal contributor, a high-profile tech personality and one of Wired's Faces of Innovation.

Disclosure

Violet Blue

I am currently freelancing part-time (only) for ReadWriteWeb for their general news blog and their Start (startup tools) channel; this was made in agreement that I would not write about anything that might conflict subjects in my blog (no sex content). I'm under contract to publisher Cleis Press for editing three more books (only) with the topics of women's/couples' erotica. I have been writing and editing books for Cleis Press for ten years on the subjects of erotica and human sexuality (guidebooks). I'm not under exclusive contract anywhere/to anyone/to anything, I have no investments.

Biography

Violet Blue

Violet Blue (tinynibbles.com, @violetblue) is a Forbes Web Celeb, SF Appeal contributor, a high-profile tech personality and one of Wired's Faces of Innovation. She is regarded as the foremost expert in the field of sex and technology, a sex-positive pundit in mainstream media (MacLife, Forbes.com, The Oprah Winfrey Show, others) and is regularly interviewed, quoted and featured prominently by major media outlets (from ABC News to the Wall Street Journal). A published feature writer and columnist, Violet also has many award-winning, best-selling books; her books are featured on Oprah's website. She was the notorious sex columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. She headlines at conferences ranging from ETech, LeWeb and SXSW: Interactive, to Google Tech Talks at Google, Inc. The London Times named Blue one of the 40 bloggers who really count.
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RE: Every Inch Counts: Porn Filesharing Lawsuits Crest 30K Defendants
dekemasters 20th Nov 2010
This report fails to mention the response of the adult industry's trade association, Free Speech Coalition, to the problem of internet piracy: APAP (Anti-Piracy Action Program), which involves digital fingerprinting technology, and enables content producers to take action against the illegal tube sites. Back in April 2010, they released two video PSAs to spread public awareness and begin a dialogue with consumers. The PSAs now appear on many adult DVDs, and also on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xNzsTHA1nI&hd=1

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE7xMI6vIVs&hd=1
0 Votes
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Batman XXX: A GREAT Porn Parody
wackoae 8th Nov 2010
Seriously!!! Unless you are a prune (or a minor), this is an adult movie that people can watch and enjoy without having to be a complete pervert.

It actually has a "retro" plot that not only follows the original series but it also complements the sex scenes.

And BTW, just pay the miserable rental fee. You won't waste the money .... and maybe producers would make more movies that have a fun plot and aren't just changes between sex scenes.
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"Prune"?
Hallowed are the Ori 9th Nov 2010
@wackoae

And BTW, just pay the miserable rental fee. You won't waste the money .... and maybe producers would make more movies that have a fun plot and aren't just changes between sex scenes.

A plot? Why would you want a plot interrupting the sex scenes?
@Hallowed are the Ori
He (she?) was probably aiming for "prude" ... close, but no cigar
@city_zen
Cigars would be in a porn film about the *last* Democratic White House! wink
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If it turns into a giant shakedown operation with companies just sending out indiscriminate "legal notices" and filing unsupportable lawsuits, then the courts will eventually take notice and the "loose" methods of enforcing the DMCA and copyrights will get quashed. This would affect companies like Disney just as bad as it would Hustler, and Disney has billions on the line, not just a few million for crummy porn garbage.
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An order of magnitude
use_what_works_4_U 9th Nov 2010
An order of magnitude greater than 20,000 is 200,000 not 30,000. Assuming that we are still using base 10.

Of course, this is porn and we know how that effects mens' ability to measure objects! wink
@macadam
I'm guessing porn has affected (not effected) your grammatical abilities. It is mens' not men's. '

Of course, this is porn and we know how that effects mens' ability to measure objects! wink
@scottatdtn
man => men (plural) => men's (plural possessive)

vs.

men => mens (plural plural?) => mens' (plural plural possessive?)

We men already have problems with our measuring abilities; please don't screw with our grammar too.
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You have to consider the timebase
fairportfan 9th Nov 2010
@macadam The 20K suits filed by the RIAA were over "a number of years" - these 30K have been filed, essentially, all at once. So, yeah - the *rate* of filing might well be close to an order of magnitude greater.
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Good point
use_what_works_4_U 10th Nov 2010
@fairportfan
You make a very good point. Of course if that is the case it would have been nice to get that context in the article.
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"Legit"?
kd5auq 9th Nov 2010
What a joke!
When you get the law changed to RETROACTIVELY extend a copyright .... you call that LEGIT?
wink
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Re: Legit
stevejg61 9th Nov 2010
@kd5auq It is and has been done in this country (the US). Read what the US Constitution has to say about copyrights (they should be relatively short) and compare them to what has been enacted - why do you tink Disnay stoill controls Mickey Mouse (TM) he should have been in the public domain years ago
@stevejg61 That's what happens when it costs less to buy politicians than it does to buy porn.
Does Violet get paid by the number of puns she's able to get into each article?
@city_zen Yes, we've included a smarmyness bonus into her freelancer contract.
I'd like to know what percentage of "infringers" are within USA jurisdiction (you know, with the Internet being a worldwide thing and stuff). Because, ultimately, those are the only ones that can be sued, right?
haha now that will be funny. Do they sue companies because a user on the network was using torrent downloads? I think that will be quite hard(punn intended).

Course they could also end up trying to sue someone of means, in which that will just backfire, costing them more money than they would make.

Besides, how can you prove that someone actually shared a whole file with torrents? i could of downloaded 100% then shared 50%, yea i infringed on the download, but the upload was not complete, which means i only violated once.

What about people who change IP's often(like me)? I guess we get to screw the poor neighbor who picked up my IP.
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How funny !
Alan Smithie 9th Nov 2010
A few years ago the pornsters were breaking the law peddling their smut, how ironic the shoe is now on the other foot.
Do these guys pay royalties and licensing fees to the creators/owners of Batman, etc., or do they claim its a spoof like a Weird Al song?

It would seem that converting a popular brand/character to a porn subject would cheapen and damage that b/c beyond any gain for the owner. I can't imagine that DC granted permission for this.

They should sue. It's the American Way, like in the old George Harrison song, Sue Me, Sue You Blues.
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I'd love . . .
JLHenry 9th Nov 2010
@cdmsr

to see DC sue this guy. DC (and Marvel) are pretty aggressive about defending their copyrights . . . .
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Probably won't see that happen...
Wolfie2K3 9th Nov 2010
@JLHenry
There are laws making exceptions to things labeled as a parody.
@Violet Blue I loved the tone happy larger than the average guy?s, limp revenues, new kind of shrinkage LMAO! The Criminal running to the dog for help." laughs" talking about a good example of Poetic justice.
This report fails to mention the response of the adult industry's trade association, Free Speech Coalition, to the problem of internet piracy: APAP (Anti-Piracy Action Program), which involves digital fingerprinting technology, and enables content producers to take action against the illegal tube sites. Back in April 2010, they released two video PSAs to spread public awareness and begin a dialogue with consumers. The PSAs now appear on many adult DVDs, and also on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xNzsTHA1nI&hd=1

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE7xMI6vIVs&hd=1

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