The Federal Magistrates Court of Australia has found Venus Adult Shops and its principals — Alan Vassallo, Jerry Gordon and Phillip De Prima — liable for breach of copyright with its stock of adult titles. The owners have been ordered to pay a total of $191,465.80 in damages, with additional court costs to be determined.
The ruling comes after a long investigation by Australia’s Adult Industry Copyright Organization Ltd (AICO) into the activities of Venus Adult Shops on behalf of several U.S. adult studios and their Australian distributors. Applicants in the case are Zero Tolerance, Vivid, Red Light District, Colossal Entertainment, Falcon, Acid Rain, Wicked Pictures and distributors Calvista Australia and Greenwich Technologies.
The investigation involved an ex-employee of Venus who presented evidence proving that the company copied its adult titles before selling them.
According to AICO, the Federal Magistrate judge found that Venus and its directors, “were well aware of copyright and the difference between legitimate and illegitimate films and they, by virtue of their experience, must have been aware of the risks that they were running but sought to gain a profit not withstanding those risks. They embarked upon a course of conduct in infringing the copyright in the infringed films to advance their own commercial purposes, with a disregard for the rights of the copyright owners and artists.”
This is the second ruling of copyright infringement against Venus and the fourth ruling against it by the courts. In a Federal Court in December 2006, Venus and two of its directors were ordered to pay $139,400 in compensation to the adult industry.
“Despite having been found liable earlier, Venus thought it could continue on with a business that was fundamentally based on piracy,” said AICO Executive Officer, Graeme Dunne. “The second ruling today really spells the end of the road for the pirate activities of Venus Adult Shop and its directors. The adult film industry is committed to fighting piracy and will continue to pursue those involved in cases such as this one. It is time for operators like Venus to realise that they have nowhere to go if they persist in making and dealing in pirate products. Given the circumstances of this case the applicants intend to seek indemnity costs, which are likely to run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
For more information on AICO, go to www.aico.org.au.
