MIAMI — Membership site MetArt this month filed a $4.35 million federal lawsuit against the operator of VPorn.com, claiming infringement charges after it allegedly found 29 of its copyrighted videos on the adult tube site.
MetArt, in the complaint filed by parent company Hydentra LP at Miami federal court, named as defendants VPorn.com, parent company Siracusa Management S.A. of Panama and its managing director, Anton Titov, aka Atanas Vangelov, of Bulgaria.
MetArt charges that VPorn.com and its operator systematically abused DMCA safe-harbor provisions by failing to honor take-down notices.
The 29 MetArt videos said to be placed on VPorn.com were spread across 36 separate URLs. Some of the movies allegedly found on the tube site included “Be My Slave,” “The Art of Sex 2,” “SexArt Drive and “Stay Sweet.”
VPorn.com, the suit said, profited from banner advertising and paid affiliates $1.75 for every 1,000 unique visitors sent to the site.
“[D]efendants acted with willful blindness and reckless disregard of plaintiffs' registered copyrights,” MetArt’s suit said.
The suit seeks $150,000 for each infringed film as well as a restraining order, among other forms of relief, including attorneys fees and court costs.
The VPorn.com suit is the latest legal action by MetArt over protection of its copyrights and trademarks.
In the past year, MetArt has filed numerous other infringement claims, including those against the operators of DrTuber.com, XVideos.com, Sex.com, AdultPornVideoxx.com, JoJoBaa.net, Motherless.com, KPorno.com, Pornias.com, LikePorno.com, SpankBang.com, Porn69.biz, Porn69.org, PornHub88.com, Sex88.org, PornoWow.com, Tubenn.com, Wixvi.so, Wixvi.com, HDPorn1080.com, HDPorn1080.net, SexTVx.com, SexSeeVideo.net and PornVideoXO.com.
Parent company Hydentra LP’s suite of membership websites include MetArt.com, SexArt.com, Errotica-Archives.com, EroticBeauty.com, TheLifeErotic.com, RylskyArt.com, MichealNinn.com, ALSScan.com, VivThomas.com, EternalDesire.com, Stunning18.com, HollyRandall.com, Domai.com, GoddessNudes.com, MagikSex.com and BBFilms.com.
Jason Tucker of Battleship Stance, which represents MetArt in identifying poached content online, told XBIZ: "It's unfortunate that the courts needed to be used to stop their use of content that does not belong to them. It would have been nice if they responded to take down notices"