Court Orders Porkbun and Other Registrars to Hand Over PornXP Domains to Aylo
Pornhub parent company Aylo has won its copyright infringement lawsuit against PornXP, securing a $10.2 million damages award against its Kyrgyzstani operator. The court also ordered domain registries to disable and transfer the PornXP domains to Aylo. However, since domain registrars are not mentioned in the court order, PorkBun refused to take action, which meant that Aylo had to go back to court.
Formerly known as Mindgeek, Aylo is the driving force behind free ‘tube’ sites such as Pornhub, YouPorn, and RedTube. It also owns many adult brands, including Brazzers and Reality Kings, that charge for subscriptions.
The company controls an impressive library of more than 40,000 registered copyrighted works. When this content appears on third-party sites, it doesn’t hesitate to take legal action.
Last summer, for example, Aylo Premium sued the operators of PornXP, who were initially identified as “John Does.” As the case moved forward, Aylo pinpointed the alleged operator, Alex Abdullaev, in Kyrgyzstan. However, when Aylo sent someone to personally serve their suspect in the Central Asian country, no one answered the door.
Without a formal response from the defendant, Aylo eventually requested a default judgment at the U.S. District Court in Tacoma, Washington. According to Aylo, the pirate site network cost them over $172 million per month in potential lost subscriptions, based on PornXP’s 17 million monthly visitors.
In an attempt to recoup part of the damage, the adult entertainment company requested $15,000 in damages for each of the 2,040 infringing works, totaling more than $30 million.
Court Grants $10m and Domain Seizures
In an order issued last month, U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle issued a default judgment in favor of Aylo. While the Kyrgyzstani operator is held liable, the court reduced the requested damages by a third, to a little over $10 million.
“Aylo has demonstrated Abdullaev willfully infringed its copyrighted works and a statutory damages award is warranted and required. However, the Court in its discretion declines to award Aylo the $30.6 million it requests,” Judge Settle writes.
“The Court finds that only a fraction of the visitors would have paid for Aylo’s services. In its discretion and in the interests of justice, the Court will award $5,000 for each of the 2,040 offending works, totaling $10,200,000,” the order adds.
