Channel One Releasing, Corbin Fisher and Titan Media have joined together in a suit filed at U.S. District Court in San Francisco in yet another battle against websites that operate tube site ventures with alleged poached content.
Keith Webb of Titan Media told XBIZ that the three companies decided to take a stand as one in this lawsuit.
"United we stand, divided we fall!" he said. "I’m gonna be working in a sweat shop soon if we don’t do something about these pirates."
The suit targets the operators of JerkYourTube.com, GayForIt.com and ItsAllGay.com, all owned by three companies whose directors and shareholder include U.K. residents Steven and David Compton.
The Comptons not only are known as operators of the three similar-formatted sites, but the pair recently rolled out COP-CMS, a software program that proclaims to protect adult studios from copyright infringement.
In the suit waged Friday, the Comptons' three sites "serve as prime examples of websites designed with the sole purpose of redirecting profits from copyright holders to the un-invested poachers operating the infringing sites."
It also said that the sites try to shield behind the possible legal angle that content is user-generated and that the "defendants place their brand on plaintiff’s intellectual property as if it belonged to them."
"Defendants carefully control the videos they accept in exchange for access to their sites," the suit said. "[M]oreover, defendants require uploaders to strip away any evidence that the content is a professional or copyright registered work by prohibiting any video that has the copyright owners’ titles, credits or watermarks."
Marc Randazza, Corbin Fisher's general counsel, told XBIZ that the company he represents built itself around hard work and that he views pirates as no better than roaches.
"When some lazy lowlife decides that he wants to reap the benefits of that entrepreneurship by latching on as a parasite, that means it is time to call the exterminators," he said. "These guys are not pirates. They are roaches and should be treated as such.
"When these scumbags steal from one of us, they are stealing from all of us. Titan, Corbin Fisher and Channel One recognize this and are trying to get the ball rolling for the entire adult entertainment community to realize that we live in a nice building, but we've got roaches. These three companies are spraying for them together."
XBIZ was unable to reach Steven and David Compton by post time.