LOS ANGELES — Shortly after a fraud complaint against the owners of Malibu Media, the content company behind the glamcore X-Art brand, which is notorious for their aggressive litigation strategy against illegal porn downloads, was filed by their financial backers, the Malibu Media team has sued one of their attorneys for failure to account for owed settlement funds.
Malibu Media, owned by the husband-and-wife team of Colette Pelissier and Brigham Field, became synonymous with mass litigation in defense of porn copyrights. These lawsuits resulted in lucrative settlements, reportedly from adult content downloaders who were threatened with public exposure.
A complaint against Pelissier and Field was filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court by Genova Capital and Warmblood Inc., both run by Joshua Hunter and Robert Cook. The financiers claim that the settlements generated over $26.5 million for the Malibu Media couple, and accused Pelissier and Field of fraudulent behavior towards them.
Alleging that the couple's "high-end lifestyle has begun to outstrip their business income," Genova claims they loaned them $2.5 million and Warmblood claims they invested $400,000 in Malibu Media.
In late 2018, according to the complaint, “Malibu Media needed a capital infusion to continue its Copyright Enforcement Efforts." The litigants claim that Malibu Media received "consulting services in the form of financial forecasting and budgeting and gave up 50 percent of its net recovery from the mass copyright litigation, as well as a 50 percent interest in the copyrights to the adult films,” according to a review of the filings by an analyst with the Hollywood Reporter.
In 2018 alone, according to the complaint, Malibu Media's litigation netted $2.8 million, but the plaintiffs “say they haven't seen any of the money and can't get an accounting” and Pelissier and Field are attempting to hide their assets “into more obscure entities, including […] shell entity holding companies.”
Yesterday, Pelissier and Feld filed their own complaint in Los Angeles against attorney Edgar Sargsyan. They claim Sargsyan failed to turn over “nearly $2.4 million in funds from the copyright litigation,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Recently, several judges have delivered stinging tirades against lawyers who specialize in filing hundreds or thousands of lawsuits seeking settlement from copyright violators. Lincoln Bandlaw, the attorney for Strike 3 Holdings was lambasted from the DC federal bench as a “copyright troll” for attempting to use the courts “as an ATM” this past November.
Bandlaw recently left the prestigious Fox Rothschild firm, where he was a partner, following the bad publicity caused by the repeated judicial rebukes. Fox Rothschild has reportedly discontinued mass copyright litigation after Bandlaw’s departure.
