HOUSTON — Command Cinema filed suit last week against the operators of two websites, ClassicPornBox.com and MegaClassicPorn.com, for alleged copyright infringement after the classic porn distributor found five titles being sold on the sites.
The suit, filed at U.S. District Court in Texas, names site operators Floyd Edward Hodges, Ray Reiter and Pinnacle Entertainment as defendants.
Five titles — "Babylon Pink," "Foxtrot," "Dangerous Stuff," "Neon Nights" and "Platinum Paradise" are at the center of the suit.
Cecil Howard, Command's producer and director, said in a statement that the alleged acts of infringement are painful.
“Those are some of my best known and most beloved titles. It hurts," Howard said. "So much work and financial investment went into producing these movies and I’ve worked hard to protect their integrity in every way. It really gets my goat that people are profiting from the investment of time and money I made.”
The alleged infringement came to Howard’s attention, he said, when he received a call from HotMovies.com, currently the exclusive licensed distributor for the Command library.
HotMovies had been alerted to the alleged acts of infringement by Eric Green from RemoveYourContent as part of a deal between the two companies.
“I know HotMovies makes every effort to ensure the original producer or holder of rights for every movie on their site is properly compensated,” Green said. “Our job is to help protect those same businesses from website operators who don’t have the same type of scruples. I’m glad for Howard’s sake that we found these guys.”
HotMovies and RemoveYourContent later offered Howard help to help finance the suit. Howard is being represented in this matter by attorney Evan Stone of Denton, Texas.
