SAN DIEGO — When it comes to fighting piracy for his clients, attorney Marc Randazza doesn’t believe in get-rich-quick schemes, instead he prefers a more multi-faceted approach in order to achieve maximum results for both his clients and the adult industry.
So far, his approach has worked.
During the past two years, Corbin Fisher, for whom Randazza serves as General Counsel, has seen the availability of its material on pirate sites drop by 70 percent while signups have jumped by 20 percent.
Randazza attributes this to not only his work ethic and belief in due process of the law, but to his long-term campaign in attempting to change what he calls a “toxic pirate environment.”
Since Friday, Randazza’s firm has filed six BitTorrent suits in California, Wisconsin and Nevada. By assembling a network of lawyers, Randazza said he plans on filing more suits in other states such as North Carolina, Florida, Texas, Michigan and others.
“We’ve got to get people everywhere,” he said. “We’ve got to change the prevailing view, which is ‘Who pays for porn?’”
He said he hopes his lawsuits will deter others from illegally downloading or sharing content online and that changing the behaviors of people who believe porn should be free isn’t an easy task, but he’s in it for the long haul and it begins with a multi-pronged strategy.
“The first goal is to do loss prevention and recognize how much my clients are losing and find a way to stem the bleeding,” he said. “The second goal is to create awareness and let people know that there are consequences.
"The third goal is to use the money from litigation proceeds to fund research and development for market-based approaches to the problem."
Randazza is filing suits in jurisdictions where the defendants are located because he wants to give them a fair shot at defending themselves.
“I don’t believe in bullying people into writing checks,” he said.
“I don’t want anybody to write a check who feels they were unable to properly defend themselves. These people deserve to be treated as human beings. You need to respect the other party’s rights.”
Meanwhile, the money Randazza has recouped for his clients has not only helped stem the tide of loss, but some of the companies have used that money as a seed fund for creating technological solutions, while others have donated to charity.
“By playing by the rules, you do the entire community a service,” he said. “We all have to do this together.”
