SAN FRANCISCO - Titan Media has sued and successfully shut down an online gay porn piracy ring. The suit was filed in the Northern District of California and names Gilbert Michael Gonzales of Desert Hot Springs, Calif., as the "ringleader," in addition to 21 other "John Doe" defendants.
Titan's suit claims "willful copyright infringement of more than 45 Titan Media-owned films." It is believed that Gonzalez and his cronies have taken more than 100,000 illegal downloads from Titan Media. The studio alleges that Gonzalez, calling himself "MikeyG," was in charge of up to six anonymous blogs, which dealt with the "illegal trafficking of stolen gay adult films." Three of the blogs were hosted on Google's BlogSpot.com, and one on Ning.com. By utilizing free blogs, pirates are able to find stolen property and disperse via free file-hosting sites.
Keith Webb, president of Titan, said, "The message we are sending is that you can run, but you cannot hide. Mr. Gonzalez thought he could hide behind anonymous blogs and postings, but he was seriously mistaken. People need to realize that nothing they do online is anonymous. Every single posting, upload, download, or page view is tracked and recorded, and can eventually be traced back to the individual. Mr. Gonzales taunted us in his online blog postings to try and catch him and shut him down...so we did. If you steal Titan Media property, we will identify you and we will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law."
Gill Sperlein, Titan's general counsel, said, "Although there is only one named defendant in the initial complaint, we know that there are at least 21 additional John Doe defendants to be added. We are in the process of subpoenaing the various Internet service providers to determine the true names and addresses of the other active members of the piracy ring and will add their names to the complaint as they are discovered."
Webb says that as far as he knows, Titan is the first adult studio to file a lawsuit against "John Does" for online piracy, adding, "Now that we have filed the lawsuit, the hosting providers will turn over the IP address/timedate stamp of the illegal postings of our content. With that information we will then subpoena the various ISP's hosting the IP address and they will turn over the true name and address of the individual associated with the IP address. Very similar to what the MPAA/RIAA has been doing."
Titan has an anti-piracy policy in place and has won more than 40 copyright infringement lawsuits regarding online theft.
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