LOS ANGELES—Manwin Licensing International, on behalf of two of its most well-trafficked tube sites, YouPorn.com and Pornhub.com, filed a lawsuit Tuesday in federal court in Los Angeles, accusing the unnamed owners of 28 domains with violating the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. Manwin is seeking the maximum statutory damages allowed under law of $100,000 per violation, a total of $2.8 million.
The complaint, filed by Marc E. Mayer of the Los Angeles law firm, Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp, states, "By this action, Manwin seeks to put an immediate stop to, and to obtain redress for, Defendants' massive and coordinated campaign of cybersquatting and misappropriating Manwin's YOUPORN and PORNHUB trademarks in no fewer than 28 domain names, each of which was registered unlawfully and in bad faith by Defendants."
The complaint alleges that the 28 domains were registered between 2007 and 2011, and that "each of the Infringing Domains is held in the name of the privacy service 'WhoisGuard,' registered through the domain name registrar 'eNom,' and lists as its administrative contact an e-mail address that is a string of numbers followed by '[email protected].'"
The complaint further states, "Based on the similarity of the Infringing Domains and the manner in which they were registered, Manwin is informed and believes, and on that basis avers, that all of the Infringing Domains were registered (or caused to be registered) either by a single individual or a group of individuals acting in concert with each other." YouPom and PornHub, it adds, are the 94th and 58th most visited websites in the United States, respectively.
The allegedly cybersquatting domains named in the suit are:
deutsches-youpom.com, youporns.org , downloadyouporn.net, sexyouporn.net, xhamster-youporn.com, youpom-gratuit.com, youpornhubs.com, youpornix.com , you-pomo.org , youpornogratuit.com, youpomoredtube.com , youpomos.net, youpomotube.org , youpornotubesex.com, youpomsex.net , youpom-sexe.com, youpomvip.com, pornhub-fr.com , thepornhubx.com , livepornhub.com, pornhubs.com, timtube-pornhub.com, pornhubmovies.com , pornhub-vip.com, youpomhubs.com, pornhub-pomo.com, pornhubsexvideos.com, and youporn-pornhub.info.
In a press announcement issued Wednesday, Manwin stated, "By this action, [Pornhub.com and Youporn.com] are initiating their first brand protection strategy, and seeking to put an immediate stop to, as well as obtain redress for defendants‟ coordinated campaign of cybersquatting, and appropriation of Pornhub and YouPorn trademarks and domain names.
"This case is the first in a series of cybersquatting complaints to be filed by Pornhub and YouPorn, as part of their campaign to defend, and protect, their brands and business against illegal and unlawful exploitation," added the company.
A quick perusal of the alleged infringing domains reveals several that resolve to German, French and English-language sites that indeed appear to be using the plaintiff's marks. One of the more overtly egregious examples is downloadyouporn.net, a Youporn.com video download service that actually contains a Youporn logo at the top of the page. Another one, pornhubs.com, auto-redirects to sexvideo.com, and others do not resolve at all.
In addition to the statutory fines, the tube sites are seeking attorneys' fees, prejudgment interest and costs as provided by law.
The Manwin v Does 1-10 complaint can be accessed here.
