Friday, Jul 22, 2005    Text size: 

Jules Jordan Video has filed suit in U.S. District Court in New York against Empire DVD and Empire Erotica, as well owner Kesera Seneviatne.

Empire DVD sells mainstream and adult videos, while Empire Erotica sells adult products, including sex toys, exclusively.

The stores, which sit side by side near the Empire State Building on West 33rd Avenue, allegedly sold bogus copies of “Feeding Frenzy,” “Flesh Hunter 2,” “Lex the Impaler,” “Trained Teens” and “Trained Teens 2,” all Jules Jordan titles that are distributed through Evil Angel Productions.

Jules Jordan Inc. of Studio City, Calif., primarily sells its videos through standard distribution channels, as well as through Internet paysites.

According to the suit, the stores “have in the past and are currently deceiving consumers by palming off counterfeit copies.”

The suit said videos were purchased at the store and later identified as counterfeit. Each of the videos were endorsed with incorrect coding and sealed without a pull strip.

When Evil Angel representatives confronted the store managers, they said they would “cease and desist the sale of the products” and would provide invoices for the purchases of the alleged counterfeit Jules Jordan videos, according to the suit.

After a subsequent visit to the store, Evil Angel representatives said that they purchased additional counterfeit videos.

The suit seeks monetary damages, injunctive relief and attorneys fees.

Jules Jordan owner Ashley Gasper, who writes, directs, produces and performs in his videos, was not available for comment.

According to his post on the Jules Jordan website, a number of video stores in the New York area have been selling counterfeits.

“These are not burned discs, these are fully replicated DVD-5 discs, as opposed to legitimate Jules Jordan movies replicated on DVD-9,” the post said.

Seneviatne, owner of the the two stores, refused to comment to XBiz.

Evil Angel in the past has said it would treat copyright infringement with zero tolerance. In May, Evil Angel filed suit in federal court against Direct Distributors, a New York distributor of adult videos.