SAN FRANCISCO - IO Group Inc., the parent company of Titan Media, has filed a $2.7 million copyright-infringement lawsuit against British company GLBT Ltd., parent of gay video-sharing sites GayForIt, ItsAllGay and JerkYourTube.
The lawsuit, filed Aug. 11 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges GLBT Ltd. and 25 unknown others intentionally and vicariously infringed Titan copyrights, induced others to infringe Titan copyrights, violated Titan's trademark rights and misappropriated Titan's right of publicity. In addition, the suit alleges GLBT Ltd. engaged in unfair business practices under the laws of the state of California because the site does not adhere to the labeling requirements outlined in 18 USC ยง2257.
According to Titan vice president Keith Webb, GayForIt is GLBT Ltd.'s main site.
"It's served from USA-based servers and targeted at a USA audience, so we have no issues with jurisdiction and getting them into USA courts," Webb said. "On the main site, we've found 55 of our video files - with an average length of 15-20 minutes each - that have been viewed 574,881 times. And that's just the one site!"
Documents filed with the court allege "Defendants solicit individuals to supply gay-oriented, adult-themed, sexually explicit works for reproduction, distribution and public display by and through the highly interactive website GayForIt.com. Individuals supply thousands of videos many of which belong to plaintiff and other producers and which are transferred and exploited without authorization.... Defendants earn revenue by selling memberships to view the video files it obtains from individuals."
According to Webb, charging for access to the videos submitted by other users sets GLBT Ltd.'s websites apart from most other so-called "tube sites" - and Webb said Titan counsel Gill Sperlein believes the distinction disqualifies GLBT Ltd. from protection under ISP safe-harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
GayForIt offers a "free seven-day account that requires you upload content, but then up-charges $29.95 for full-access memberships," Webb said. "The site ... clearly is not a service provider as defined by the DMCA. They do not qualify for DMCA safe harbor protection and are fully liable for all the content on their website."
The "rules for qualifying for 7 days unlimited membership" [sic] posted on the "help" page at GayForIt specify new members must upload two videos over five minutes long. The videos must be posted to public queues on the site and may not duplicate any videos or video clips already posted. In addition, the rules prohibit "splitting a video into many clips" in order to fulfill the two-video minimum upload requirement. Bloggers are encouraged to contact the company by email if they want to post videos under one minute in length.
"Defendants deliberately and knowingly built a library of infringing works to draw Internet traffic to the subject website, enabling defendants to sell memberships to view the works while also increasing the value of their business and earning vast amounts of revenue," the court filing states. Consequently, IO Group seeks "a permanent injunction requiring defendants to employ reasonable methods and or technologies to prevent or limit infringement of plaintiff's copyrights and statutory damages for defendants' past and present willful infringement, or actual damages plus profits, of at least ... $2.7 million."
GLBT Ltd. representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
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