SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge on Tuesday gave the green light for seven gay porn performers who shoot for BelAmi Studios to subpoena Google to learn the identity of the operator of a gossip blog site who has been accused of copyright infringement.
The seven performers allege that the operator of BelAmiGossip.Blogspot.com poached and posted copyrighted pictures of themselves without permission.
Performers Tom Pollock, Claude Sorel, Jack Harrer, Jamie Durrell, Jean-Daniel Chaglall, Johan Paulik and Kevin Worhol claim in the suit filed at federal court in San Francisco that they are owed unspecified damages for each pic posted on the gossip blog site.
The performers — four of the seven who reside in the Czech Republic, two in the Slavic Republic and one in London — also are asking for a restraining order to be put in place, as well as attorneys fees.
The performers’ counsel, industry attorney Gill Sperlein, has been seeking to learn the true identity of the operator of BelAmiGossip.Blogspot.com.
Sperlein believes the operator, known as M. Stevens, is an individual who resides in London. Sperlein has told the court that he’s had contact with a representative of Stevens, but that later the email conversation had ended.
On Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James approved the order to subpoena Google records in seeking the actual identity of the gossip blog site’s operator.