LOS ANGELES — Seventeen new porn BitTorrent piracy lawsuits fingering 515 defendants were filed in federal courts throughout the U.S. in the past week.
Elegant Angel filed five suits in Massachusetts and Florida targeting 149 John Doe defendants who allegedly traded some of its movies, including the 2010 video "Real Female Orgasms 13."
Malibu Media also filed five suits — all in Florida — directing infringement charges at 157 Does.
Third Degree Films and Digital Sin both filed in Massachusetts against 80 and 44, respectively, while Nucorp and Raw Films filed against 11 a piece in Florida.
Evil Angel, in its first porn BitTorrent piracy lawsuit, sued 14 unnamed defendants in Florida. The suit not only points to infringement charges but trademark dilution, as well.
In Arizona, Devils Film sued 27 over allegedly infringing on "This Isn’t Twilight The XXX Parody."
And in New York gay adult studio Corbin Fisher filed a suit asking a court to hold two individual liable for infringement for trading "Corbin Fisher's Down on the Farm."
In the suit, Corbin Fisher says that defendants Cary Tabora and Schulyer Whetstone, both roommates and named in another now-dismissed porn BitTorrent piracy suit involving some 840 infringements, are responsible for infringement, or at least one of them is.
Tabora, Corbin Fisher says, spoke with its attorneys and admitted that it was Whetstone who was the party who illegally and distributed the movie.
"In an attempt to divert liability from himself, Tabora expressly stated that he had full knowledge that Whetstone regularly used Tabora's Internet connection for the criminal purpose of pirating copyrighted content, yet Tabora's continued to permit Whetstone to use the Internet connection for the purpose," the suit says. "In fact, Tabora stated emphatically, 'I was negligent' in allowing Whetstone to use his Internet connection to illegally pirate content, and that he was aware that it would eventually cause legal problems for him."
The suit's wording characterizes the pair as "seeders" and "not leachers."
"They were seeders, and they seeded to reap the benefits granted to a seeder," the suit says. "This benefit was not in actual cash, but had substantial pecuniary value: access to volumes of infringing copies of pornographic materials.
"In the online swap meet of pirated motion pictures, sharing is not just caring; sharing is currency."
Each of the suits claim infringement damages of up to the statutory maximum of $150,000 per Doe or named individuals.
XBIZ publishes a weekly report each Friday on porn BitTorrent piracy filings in the U.S.
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