ALTADENA, Calif. — Max Hardcore — the porn actor, producer and director whose MaxHardcore.com domain was seized after he was convicted on obscenity counts and spent 30 months of a 46-month federal prison sentence — wants his signature domain back.
"I'm gonna take it back!" Hardcore told XBIZ Sunday night upon learning about a pending auction involving his once-forfeited domain name. "It's about damn time if you ask me."
Two weeks ago, MaxHardcore.com was released by the Justice Department, which had held the domain name for seven years, and its URL changed to “pending delete or renewal” status at Network Solutions.
According to TheDomains.com, the domain has multiple backorders on NameJet.com, which receives all of Network Solutions dropped domains. NameJet auctions off dropped domains that aren't renewed.
"The government auctioning off property it has seized in the commission of criminal acts, taxes or other legal issues is nothing new," TheDomains' Michael Berkens said in a discussion about the domain availability on Friday.
"But in this case instead of the DOJ, listing the domain as a owned asset of the government in an auction, in which case they would collect the lion's share of the sale price, by not renewing the domain name and simply allowing the domain to drop, the government would not get a penny from the auction."
At post time, it wasn't determined when an auction of the name would be held.
Hardcore, who learned about the auction through this reporter's call, did not elaborate about bidding for MaxHardcore.com, which continues to receive a volume of traffic despite it once having a home page reading that the domain name was seized by the FBI.
According to Alexa, the domain name had a three-month ranking of 5.5 million.
Hardcore's offices were raided in 2005, and later an indictment followed.
In 2007, Hardcore and his company, Max World Entertainment Inc., were charged with five counts of transporting obscene matter by use of an interactive computer service and five counts of mailing obscene material.
A year later, in 2008, he was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to 46 months in prison, in which he served 30.
Once released from prison, Hardcore continued in the porn production biz and started distributing content on Max-Hardcore.com with new remastered "director's cuts" in high definition.
Hardcore, whose birth name is Paul Little, was on probation until July.
He told XBIZ on Sunday that he's not remorseful about his travels through his year's in pornography and attempts to shut down his business, and that's he's looking forward to a bright future.
"The past was incredible, but the best is yet to be made," he said.
Hardcore this week released a special New Year's video with the "Max Hardcore Dolls" for fans and the adult industry. It can be accessed here.