SAN FRANCISCO - A federal district court judge on April 10 awarded Titan Media a default judgment in the amount of $1.275 million against a content pirate.
Gilbert Michael Gonzales of Palm Springs, Calif., who goes by the online "handle" MikeyG, was assessed $25,000 per film for 17 Titan titles he posted in their entirety to file-sharing websites, according to Titan vice president Keith Webb.
"Because the judge found the infringement was ‘willful' she trebled the damages to $75,000 per film, for a total of $1.275 million," he said.
Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California also "permanently enjoined and restrained [Gonzales] from engaging in any unauthorized use of plaintiff's copyrighted works," according to the decree.
Gonzales was one of 22 people named in the original complaint. Webb described him as the ringleader of a group that posted copyrighted Titan titles to file-sharing sites like RapidShare and Megarotic and then posted links to the shared files on Gonzales' blog.
"When we'd crack down on one hosting company about the blog, he'd start a new one somewhere else," Webb said. "We went through six or seven different blog sites" before finally nailing the perpetrator. "He even had a nickname for me [on the blogs]: Crustycunt Squarepants. You know you're really having an impact when someone comes up with a nickname for you."
Webb said Titan finally tracked Gonzales to his lair through a series of subpoenas submitted to the various hosting companies and Internet service providers he used. Surprisingly, Gonzales was a Titan customer, so the company had within its own files all the personal information it needed to name him as a defendant.
The company was able to track down the other 21 John Does mentioned in the original suit in a similar manner. Once confronted with Titan's evidence against them, "more than half of them" accepted Titan's offer to settle for what Webb called "a substantial cash sum." According to Webb, the defendants were from a variety of countries - including the U.S., Mexico, Canada and Switzerland - and many were prominent citizens in their communities. Architects, restaurant owners and several married men were among those who settled, Webb said. The ones who didn't, including Gonzales, claimed poverty, he added.
"In cases like this, their first response usually is something like, ‘Oh, I have AIDS. I'm on disability,'" he said.
Even though Titan may never collect the money the judge awarded, the company's attorney said the case was significant.
The decision "sends a message that the federal courts are going to look at adult material, including gay adult material, in the same way as they would any other material," Gill Sperlein, Titan's corporate legal counsel, told GAYVN.com. "Typically, adult content owners are somewhat reluctant to come forward and file cases, but they shouldn't be."
The award also "sends a message to infringers that courts will find against them in these cases," he added. "Defendants have told us ‘no one's going to take gay porn seriously,' but this was a respected judge - the same judge who wrote the decision in the Napster [copyright infringement] case - and she took it very seriously. She gave us what we asked for."
According to federal copyright law, damages for infringement that is not intentional start at $750 per work and can be as high as $150,000 per work. Sperlein said willful infringement typically triples the damages.
He also said the case indicates copyright abusers "can't hide. They can add layers, but so far we've been able to track down people regardless of what methods they use."
Whether or not Titan is able to collect any money from Gonzales, Webb said he thinks the man has learned a lesson about respecting others' intellectual property.
Titan currently is pursuing a similar case against another group of copyright infringers referred to as "Mark Laperna and Does 1-44." According to the suit, Laperna, a resident of Las Vegas, operates the BigDickClub piracy network on Ning.com. Among the unnamed Does are the operators of the AmericanGay, GayMaleDuoJOShare, JimiPhilsNetwork, PornoShare, MP2Guys, ErogenousZone and FotoFylesFotos piracy networks on Ning.com. The remainder of the Does are individual file traders on those networks. Titan is in the process of serving subpoenas to determine the Does' actual identities.
According to the suit, all of the defendants have engaged in willful, contributory and vicarious copyright infringement. Laperna also is accused of trademark infringement because he displays the registered TitanMen logo on his Ning.com network pages.
The suit seeks unspecified damages.
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