Award-winning adult film director Greg Lansky, the creative mastermind behind Vixen.com, Tushy.com and Blacked.com, has added a new company to his incredible résumé: Strike 3 Holdings, LLC.
However, Strike 3 wasn’t created to shoot or distribute adult content; it was formed to protect it.
Using the federal court system, Lansky’s company has begun filing suit against individuals who steal his award-winning porn via bitTorrent websites and file sharing networks.
Porn pirates.
As of press time, Strike 3 Holdings has filed a total of 117 lawsuits in Michigan, the District of Columbia, Washington state, Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.
Lansky, a savvy businessman who was recently profiled by Forbes, is clearly pissed off that his prized property is being pilfered online.
All the defendants in the suit filed by Lansky’s company are named as ‘John Does’, and only their IP addresses are used to identify them.
Each IP is alleged to have downloaded multiple scenes or movies in violation of copyright. The next step for Strike 3 is to determine the physical address of each John Doe, with the aid of the pirates’ internet service providers.
The Wolverine State
The Shelby Township law firm of BOROJA, BERNIER & ASSOCIATES filed the Michigan actions in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan.
The physical locations of several the pirates are now known, courtesy Maxmind Inc. IP address geolocation technology. Mlive.com reports that “Three of the ‘John Doe’ defendants live in Grand Rapids. Others are in Bellevue, Big Rapids, Kalamazoo and Rapid City in Kalkaska County.”
Strike 3 alleges copyright infringement, identifying alleged thieves by IP addresses.
In one of the complaints (above), filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan against the owner of subscriber assigned IP address 172.15.113.94, Strike 3 claims:
Defendant is, in a word, stealing these works on a grand scale. Using the BitTorrent protocol, Defendant is committing rampant and wholesale copyright infringement by downloading Strike 3’s motion pictures as well as distributing them to others. Defendant did not infringe just one or two of Strike 3’s motion pictures, but has been recorded infringing 23 movies over an extended period of time.
In its complaint’s prayer for relief, Strike 3 requests that the court:
(A) Permanently enjoin Defendant from continuing to infringe Plaintiff’s copyrighted Works;
(B) Order that Defendant delete and permanently remove the digital media files relating to Plaintiff’s Works from each of the computers under Defendant’s possession, custody or control;
(C) Order that Defendant delete and permanently remove the infringing copies of Works Defendant has on computers under Defendant’s possession, custody or control;
(D) Award statutory damages per infringed work pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 504(a) and (c);
(E) Award Plaintiff its reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 505; and
(F) Grant Plaintiff any other and further relief this Court deems just and proper.
The adult business, and the entertainment industry as a whole, have been battered by widespread global piracy.
A grand scale
Thus far, no magical remedy has been able to curtail internet privacy; most adult producers have resigned themselves to sending endless reams of DMCA notices and cease and desist letters in hopes that prospective pirates will be scared away.
In 2010, the adult industry’s trade association produced two anti-piracy PSA’s which attracted worldwide media attention while raising awareness of effects of piracy.
Directors such as Axel Braun have previously ratted their sabres at porn pirates in the press, but Lansky appears to be getting some traction on his legal maneuver: even the New York Post picked up the story.
Data
Strike 3’s complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, filed by the firm of FOX ROTHSCHILD LLP, adds two pages of exhibits in the form of a massive table that lists the torrent hash number, the infringed works date of publication, and Copyright Office information.
Big data is real.
Penalties are higher when the infringed work was formally copyrighted prior to its pilfering.
Strike 3 Holdings boasts in court papers that Lansky’s sites have “more than 20 million unique visitors” and that his brands are “famous for redefining adult content” and “produced with a Hollywood style budget and quality.” No one should expect a such visionary to simply curl up in a ball when his works are stolen again and again and again.
4 Responses
who uses torrents and file sharing these days?
I was thinking the same thing. No one uses torrents for file sharing of porn as its the easiest way to detect and trace it. Only ones still using Torrents are folks in countries that don’t worry about laws like Russia and some Asian countries.
when they get around to tube sites wake me up
Greg Lansky – The Most-Pirated Man in Porn Is Getting Angry