This year’s biggest birthday surprise didn’t arrive in the form of a present for adult legend Seka. It arrived via a judgment by a National Arbitration Forum, which officially awarded the Platinum Princess of Porn Seka.com on April 15.
Seka, who has been online at OfficialSeka.com since late 2003, has endured a rather frustrating ordeal with Seka.com over the past few years.
“Was I frustrated? I was more than frustrated, considering I’ve owned the registered trademark on that name for over 20 years,” she tells AVNOnline.com. “It was not only taking my name as a domain, but a copyright infringement. They were also using pictures that I owned.”
The star also owns 10 years worth of photos published by Club magazine that were being used on the site, she says.
That’s where attorney Steven Anderson of Temecula, California-based Anderson & Associates stepped in. Anderson has done similar work for Laurie Holmes, the wife and caretaker of the estate of John Holmes.
“Because she was forced to use OfficialSeka.com instead of Seka.com, that was an issue, but the real issue that I sunk my teeth into was the website Seka.com claimed to be the official Seka site. Of course, it wasn’t. She was in no way related to them. On their site, they said it was the official site and [said it contained] Seka’s video store, and it wasn’t her video store at all,” Anderson tells AVNOnline.com.
The site was previously registered by Mark Anthony of Psites Inc. Anderson sent a letter to the registrant’s address and then filed a domain dispute, neither of which were responded to.
“Under the uniform domain dispute policy, when one signs up for a domain name, they agree to submit to arbitration should there be an issue of this nature,” Anderson says. “Having previously agreed to arbitration, the respondent should have filed a response and they did not.”
Now Seka.com redirects to OfficialSeka.com and its namesake is making plans to rebrand her online presence through her now-official domain. There’s also the possibility of further legal action against the former owner, which would be filed in federal court. Included in the equation is a large and rather well-known online adult retailer that reportedly sold the wares on the previous incarnation of Seka.com.
“The next step is to be determined,” Anderson says.
“We don’t know much about Psites Inc. We haven’t seen or heard of Mark Anthony, and I don’t know if we’re going to collect against what may be nothing more than a straw man or a fake name.”
The certainty in this is that performers have rights to their chosen name online. Lexington Steele was awarded LexingtonSteele.com in January in a similar case.
“Typically a performer that has achieved a degree of fame with respect to [his or her] name should be able to recover a domain name which is used to promote pornography generally and particularly with respect to that performer,” Anderson says.
The Seka.com case was open and shut—taking only two months to resolve once Anderson stepped in.
“I tried through some other people to get some things done and nothing seemed to be working,” Seka says. “Laurie suggested I contact Steven, which I did and it worked out perfectly because he got me my stuff.”
