SAN FRANCISCO—Three prominent adult gay studios have filed a joint lawsuit against the owners of three gay tube sites, alleging a bevy of copyright infringement and other charges. The sites are GayForIt.com, ItsAllGay.com and JerkYourTube.com.
Attorney Gill Sperlein, on behalf of Channel One Releasing, Corbin Fisher and Titan Media, filed the complaint Friday in a Northern California federal court against GLBT Ltd., Mash & New Limited, Port 80 Ltd., Steven John Compton and David Graham Compton, claiming copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement, vicarious copyright infringement, trademark infringement, the misappropriation of rights of publicity, unfair business practices, alter ego and accounting.
“The websites operated by defendants, jerkyourtube.com, gayforit.com and itsallgay.com, serve as prime examples of websites designed with the sole purpose of redirecting profits from copyright holders to the un-invested poachers operating the infringing sites,” the complaint reads. “Defendants employ technological advancements to engage in massive willful infringement of copyrights belonging to plaintiffs and others and have thus deprived plaintiffs of the lawful rewards that should accompany creativity, financial risk, innovation and entrepreneurship.
“Defendants operate these sites while maintaining the fiction that they offer a forum for consumers to upload and share their own original ‘user-generated’ adult video content,” it continues. “In reality, defendants use these sites to collect and then re-sell access to an extensive collection of infringing adult videos, including works belonging to Plaintiffs."
The plaintiffs have requested a jury trial and are seeking damages of $29.1 million for copyright infringement, plus additional damages to be determined at trial and all attorney and legal fees. They also are asking that the court order the defendants to conduct a full accounting of the three websites in order to ascertain compensatory damages.
"The amount of compensatory damages due from defendants to plaintiff is unknown to plaintiffs and cannot be ascertained without a detailed accounting by defendants of the precise number of visitors to defendants’ website, the number of views of plaintiffs’ works from defendants’ website and the amount of income generated by the website," the complaint reads.
The plaintiffs also allege that brothers Steven and David Compton, through alter egos at times, maintained either a complete ownership interest in or direct control of each of the companies being sued.
Plaintiffs are represented by Titan general counsel Sperlein and Corbin Fisher general counsel Marc Randazza.
The complaint can be read here (downloadable PDF).
AVN has contacted the Comptons for comment.
