Dominatrix and performer, Mistress Isabella Sinclaire, has recently been awarded full ownership of high-end fetish production house, GwenMedia, after a two-and-a-half year lawsuit.
The production company originally got off the ground when Isabella joined with the late GwenMedia ex-owner, Bob Zak, and writer/director, Jonathan Fitzgerald, in late 2000 to begin shooting a video series called The Ivy Manor. That is also the name of Sinclaire’s dungeon/business and video production company.
“I already had a video production company which focused on female domination and mainly male submission and had a large fan base,” Sinclaire told AVN.com. “This series was going to focus more on female submission and was to launch Bob and John's company, GwenMedia.”
Isabella said that she shot six installments of what was to be 10 titles to the series, when Fitzgerald left GwenMedia after Ivy Manor 4 and Zak continued to run the company.
“Shortly thereafter, Bob stopped paying me royalties on [the series] so I wanted to audit his business since it was my legal right to do so and he refused. So with the assistance of my attorney, Curt Edmondson, I filed a lawsuit against him in 2004.
“Bob filed a cross complaint against me to complicate the suit, and in my opinion, try to bury me in legal expenses. They offered me a deal to settle for $8,000. I was insulted, so I kept fighting and worked as hard as I could to keep up with the expense of the lawsuit,” said Sinclaire.
“I just didn’t want anyone owning the rights to my name.
“The suit got very difficult after Bob died in June 2005, two weeks before we were scheduled to go to trial and his corporation never went into probate,” Sinclaire explained. “The website was still active and the videos were still being sold unlawfully.
“But on Monday, I finally went to court and the judge gave me full ownership of all of the Ivy Manor titles as well as awarded me full ownership to all GwenMedia titles, trademarks and domain names associated with GwenMedia.”
Isabella went on to explain that in order to recoup some of the loss of royalties as well as exorbitant attorney's fees, she intends on rebuilding the company’s online store and member's area, as well as continue to produce fetish films for the company. She will also produce for her own video production company, Ivy Manor Videos.
“I have also contacted John Fitzgerald and we will be continuing the Ivy Manor series until we complete the 10-part series as planned," she said.
“There is going to be a lot of rebuilding involved…I’m going to have to build a lot of relationships back up.”
GwenMedia had a four-year distribution partnership with Bizarre Video, but in 2004, started to distribute its own titles. Sinclaire said that she will be looking through all the paperwork in the coming months and make several decision about the company’s future, under her ownership.
For more, go to www.isabellasinclaire.com.
