CHICAGO — Malibu Media, the parent company of X-Art.com, told a federal court Sunday that it will dismiss copyright infringement claims against any defendant who passes a polygraph test.
But Malibu Media said that, so far, no defendant has passed and “all such examinations have subsequently led to the defendant settling the case.”
Malibu Media, filer of more than 1,950 bit torrent copyright infringement cases over the past two years, made the statements as part of a larger status report in a porn piracy claim against John Doe with IP address 24.148.79.226.
The status report also noted that Malibu Media goes to great lengths to profile possible defendants, including surveillance of their Facebook accounts.
The court requested status of all cases filed by Malibu Media in the federal court’s Northern District of Illinois. Malibu Media said it has filed 268 cases within the district Of these 268 cases, 25 cases were with joined defendants and 243 cases were actions filed against a single defendant, like Doe’s case.
The 268 cases filed by Malibu Media had a total of 886 defendants between them. Of these 886 defendants, 643 were within joined suits and 243 defendants were from cases against only a single defendant.
“Each defendant infringed, on average, 17.9 separate copyrighted works owned by Malibu between all 886 defendants,” Malibu Media counsel said.
Malibu Media said that it takes comprehensive scan of a high percentage of all bit torrent activity within U.S. “on all known pirated content owned by all worldwide content owners.”
“To put it simply, it is a list of all other bit torrent content that is downloaded by a defendant in a lawsuit,” Malibu Media counsel said. “This includes music, mainstream movies, ebooks, computer programs, software, etc.”
Malibu Media said it analyzes and archives the results of surveillance against possible defendants, including Facebook accounts.
“As an example, Malibu can compare a subscriber’s Facebook page to its ‘additional evidence’ list associated with the subscriber’s IP address,” Malibu Media counsel said. “Oftentimes, a subscriber will publicly admit on social media to enjoying sports teams, music groups, or favorite TV shows.
“Malibu will compare their likes and interests to their ‘additional evidence’ and determine whether the interests match.”