LOS ANGELES—Malibu Media, the adult entertainment company run by married couple Brigham Field and Colette Pelissier Field, is well known for an aggressive approach to copyright protection. The Fields have filed thousands of lawsuits against individuals accused of illegally downloading their files from torrent sites—filing 337 new cases so far in 2019. Last year, the company filed 681 copyright lawsuits, according to the site Torrent Freak.
But now Malibu finds itself on the wrong end of a legal action—this one brought by two financiers who claim they have put nearly $3 million into the Fields’ business, according to a report published this week by The Hollywood Reporter.
The lawsuit filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court by Joshua Hunter and Robert Cook and their companies Genova Capital and Warmblood Inc. alleges that Malibu took in $2.8 million in 2018 alone, solely from suing and collecting settlements from internet users accused of illegally downloading Malibu-produced porn.
Hunter and Cook say they are owed half of that sum, under the deal they signed with the Fields couple in 2016, promising them 50 percent of all collections from “Copyright Enforcement Efforts,” as well as a 50 percent interest in the copyrights of all motion pictures produced by X-Art, the porn-producing arm of the Fields’ operation.
The lawsuit alleges that the Fields have been shifting money around, funneling it out of Malibu into a series of shell companies. Hunter and Cook say they have not even been able to get an accounting of the funds, according to The Hollywood Reporter summary of the lawsuit.
Though they didn't make a comment to the Reporter, the Fields do take issue with the lawsuit—and have filed one of their own. The legal action was filed Monday against Beverly Hills lawyer Edgar Sargsyan and Pillar Law Group who, according to the lawsuit, represented Malbu in many of its copyright cases.
The lawsuit accuses the lawyer of defrauding and stealing from them, forging documents and failing to turn over more than $2 million in cash collected from the copyright actions.
In a statement obtained by AVN, Colette Pelissier Field asserted, "It’s all a scam. And we will be answering the complaint and addressing the slander. We have never had a financier. Genova Cap Inc and devout Mormons Josh Hunter and Brad Cook and their family tried to get into business with us, but we never agreed on anything. Now they are trying to extort us with slander. We will fight back and show the truth. We have a new site coming and plan to increase updates on X-Art.com to daily in September/October."
Photo By Carlos Suarez / Wikimedia Commons
