LOS ANGELES — In the past week 10 porn BitTorrent lawsuits were filed in federal courts throughout the U.S.
Four of the suits were filed by a newcomer in copyright infringement litigation — Bubble Gum Productions of New Jersey.
Bubble Gum sued 257 John Doe defendants in three states — Florida, Illinois and Texas — for movies such as “ExpTeens — November 25, 2011.”
Other companies filing against alleged torrent infringers include Gay filmmaker Sean Cody's company, which filed against another swarm. 808 Holdings LLC, with its third suit over a collective of alleged infringers, filed a single suit days ago in California.
Third Degree Pictures sued 195 in Florida, Elegant Angel sued 159 in Florida and Wicked Pictures and Devil's Film filed suits in California and Florida over an undetermined number.
Other porn BitTorrent suits filed in the past seven days include AF Holdings, which filed against one Doe in Florida, and Metro Interactive, which filed against 56 in Florida.
Each of the suits ask federal judges to order ISPs to disclose user identities of the unnamed Doe defendants and claim infringement damages of up to the statutory maximum of $150,000 per Doe.
Meanwhile, Kenneth J. Ford, the porn BitTorrent attorney who runs Adult Copyright Co. out of Martinsburg, W.Va., was arraigned on two felony charges last month and has two new warrants charging him with false pretenses.
Ford was previously arraigned Jan. 11 on one count of forgery of a public record and one count of false pretenses for allegedly forging a counterfeit court order in Berkeley County. He also is accused of defrauding a client who hired him for representation in a child custody case.
The new warrants, which charge Ford with one count of felony false pretenses and one count of misdemeanor false pretenses, stem from charges that victims said he failed to perform legal services he was hired to do.
If convicted of forgery of a public record, he faces two to 10 years in prison. He faces one to 10 years in prison or, at the court's discretion, up to year in jail and a fine of up to $2,500 if convicted of the felony charges of false pretenses.
Ford made porn business headlines after he filed against more than 22,000 porn BitTorrent defendants — all since dismissed — in 2010 for companies such as Combat Zone, West Coast Productions and Axel Braun Productions. One of his West Coast suits fingered 9,729 Does.