The suit was filed in Los Angeles U.S. District Court July 7. It claims that the defendants are engaged in “infringement of the most blatant and offensive kind.”
“As a copyright holder, RK greatly respects the need to enforce one’s intellectual property rights,” RK Netmedia attorney Lawrence Walters told XBIZ.
“That being said, there are some important fair use and 1st Amendment issues inherent in this action. It is RK’s hope that we can achieve a resolution to this matter that protects both the plaintiff’s copyright interests and RK’s right to free expression and commentary on popular culture.”
The plaintiffs claim that the “defendants own and operate a network of subscription-based Internet websites that make millions of dollars from performing and distributing to their members an ever-growing library of explicit pornographic videos.”
The suit further states that the defendants know that major record labels, recording artists and music publishers do not license their works for use in such pornographic content, especially the type of extreme, sexually explicit videos that defendants produce and distribute.
So, according to the suit, “defendants simply stole these sound recordings and music compositions, synchronizing plaintiff’s works more than 500 times onto the soundtrack of their pornographic videos without license of consent from the plaintiffs.”
The plaintiffs also claim that “defendants not only incorporated plaintiff’s works into their videos, but then used them to draw an audience to their website and to advertise and promote their videos… encouraging their performers to lip-synch the lyrics to plaintiff’s recordings while engaged in sexual acts on-camera.”
The suit says that the defendants conduct is causing and unless immediately enjoined, will continue to cause enormous and irreparable harm to plaintiffs.
The lead plaintiff in the suit is Warner Bros. and also include Elektra, Atlantic and eight other studios.
The plaintiffs are seeking an injunction, punitive damages and maximum damages of $150,000 per copyright violation.