SAN FRANCISCO — Gay adult studios Falcon and Raging Stallion won several key rulings on motions yesterday at federal court in their copyright infringement suit against defunct file-locker site Oron.com.
Falcon and Raging Stallion's parent company, DataTech Enterprises, last month sued the file-locker site for unspecified damages after it found at least 400 titles on the site that were involved in more than 40,000 separate acts of infringement.
After an hour-and-a-half proceeding yesterday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled that he would grant a preliminary injunction to halt infringement and allow early discovery proceedings against Oron.
"Judge Breyer gave thoughtful consideration to all the issues and we believe he made the correct determination," industry attorney Gill Sperlein, who represents Falcon and Raging Stallion, told XBIZ. "Breyer's granting of the preliminary injunction shows he believes plaintiff has a substantial likelihood of success in proving it claims.
"The court will consider limiting the preliminary injunction if the defendants can make a showing that the assets currently frozen are in excess of the amounts likely to be recoverable by plaintiff in equitable relief. Given the vast amount of piracy of plaintiff's works this is very unlikely," he said.
Sperlein told the court in earlier briefs that early discovery is necessary in the case because information currently held by third parties, in the form of server logs, will disappear long before the parties engage in formal discovery.
Sperlein also said that without the early discovery Falcon and Raging Stallion wouldn't "be able to link the activity associated with the 'mainroman' screenname and email addresses to the individuals at the center of Oron.com, i.e., the people responsible for the day to day operation of this criminal enterprise," Sperlein said.
"Contrary to defendant’s statements, plaintiff has alleged facts that Roman Romanov is not only a beneficial owner, but that he (i.e. the person using that identity and emails linked to it) engaged in direct operation of Oron.com and maintained linking websites that indexed material on Oron.com."
Romanov is named in the suit, as well as defendants Oron.com, parent company FF Magnat Ltd. and Stanislav Davidoglov.
Breyer in his rulings Tuesday also granted an extention to the temporary restraining order in place. Falcon and Raging Stallion last month asked the court to freeze U.S. assets in its PayPal, CCBill, AlertPay accounts, as well as other U.S. financial institution accounts.
Falcon's and Raging Stallion's suit comes on the heels of Corbin Fisher's legal battle over similar infringement charges against Oron.
After a $550,000 settlement was recently reached between the Corbin Fisher and Oron, the file locker's attorneys appealed unsuccessfully to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal.
But Oron attorneys have made more appeals over numerous aspects of the case and the 9th Circuit this week scheduled motions and hearings all the way through January 2013.
Another gay adult studio, Flava Works, also has filed copyright infringement claims against Oron.