Marc J. Randazza, Corbin Fisher’s general counsel, told XBIZ that it’s obvious that the site operators “freaked out” over being hit with an anti-piracy suit and pulled the site down.
Gay production and distribution company Corbin Fisher, according to court documents filed last month at U.S. District Court in Michigan, sued DudeVu's operator and numerous DudeVu content-contributing members last month over pirating at least 39 Corbin Fisher movies on the site.
DudeVu, according to the filing, receives revenue solely from selling advertisements on the site, averaging about $190 per day.
Corbin Fisher COO Brian Dunlap said that company officials were stunned at revelations learned through its own discovery of DudeVu’s ownership.
“[T]he perpetrators of this massive infringement were ‘in the family’ so to speak,” Dunlap said. “DudeVu was owned or operated by none other than David Griffiths, who is known in the adult industry as Tyler Roblan, the owner of the popular gay adult website TylersRoom.net.”
Dunlap said that initially he “didn’t want to believe it.”
“Here is a guy who is not only an industry insider, but he was a member of our affiliate program and likely a member of lots of other affiliate programs whose content was also being stolen on DudeVu.”
Roblan also allegedly owns affiliate program TylersBucks.com.
Even though DudeVu is offline, Randazza said, Corbin Fisher doesn’t intend to drop the fight.
“DudeVu was stealing from this company, and we don’t settle infringement cases with an apology and and a promise to never do it again,” Randazza said. “We tried to resolve this with them quietly, nicely, and cheaply. They were not interested in being reasonable.”