Aug
14
Titan Sues Brit Video-Sharing Sites
August 14, 2008 | 10 Comments
IO Group Inc., the parent company of gay adult studio Titan Media, on Monday, August 11 filed a $2.7 million dollar copyright infringement lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco against GLBT Ltd., the British parent company of video sharing website GayForit.com. “It’s served from U.S.A.-based servers and targeted at a U.S.A. audience, so we have no issues with jurisdiction and getting them into USA courts,” Titan Media VP Keith Webb told AVN (CLICK HERE). “On the main site, we’ve found 55 of our video files‚Äîwith an average length of 15-20 minutes each‚Äîthat have been viewed 574,881 times. And that’s just the one site!” The site charges users to view videos submitted by other users, which Titan alleges should disqualify the company “from protection under ISP safe-harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.” Also cited in Titan’s complaint are 25 John Doe defendants; two additional GLBT Ltd. websites‚ÄîItsAllGay.com and JerkYourTube.com‚Äîhave been issued takedown letters. Reps for the company have not yet responded to the lawsuit. Mr. Webb told XBIZ (CLICK HERE) that smaller companies with knowledge of Titan’s aggressive legal department often alert the studio to instances of alleged copyright infringement. ‚ÄúPeople really need to start working together,” Webb said. “More and more torrent sites know not to allow Titan content and have warnings to their users not to upload Titan content. While this is great for us, all it does is pass the piracy burden on down the line to other similar producers. Once these sites ban our content the other producers are shit outta luck and will need to take care of the piracy themselves. All we are really doing is impacting the piracy of our content, not anyone else‚Äôs.‚Äù
Comments
10 Comments so far
The “sue happy” Titan strikes again! I bet you 90% of their income comes from litigation.
Just a small point: I will admit to having viewed an occasional video (NOT Titan!!) on GayForIt.com in the past, and at that time anyway the site was free up to a certain number of videos per day, I believe. Over that number you have to pay.
Glad to hear that someone with deep pockets is finally doing something about these damn “free” TUBE sites. They are a plague on the adult industry.
absolutely, sue the pirates, they bring our industry, our hobby in great danger! U go titan
Once again the VP of Titan is sitting on his ass with nothing to do – looking around at who he can next sue. VP is that for VERY PATHETIC – cant say what it is becoming know as? I dont condone piracy – but please surely Titan have enough share of the market without having to go after a site that merely shows what amounts to being a trailer in comparison to what they claim is the length of their features. While the VP is gladly getting his message across – what he does not realise is that more and more of us are shying away from Titan and their productions. Try putting some of the litigation income into making better films? Other studio’s not ‘sue happy’ are making some incredible movies of late, focusing on what they do best!
Pornus Addictus, would you mind leaving that “You go” phrase in the 90′s where it belongs?
Ken- I would hardly call 45 mins video a “trailer”. Or even 15-20 mins videos a “trailer”. In a world of online Pay-per-minute video sales these type of works are extremely valuable…especially when they been viewed over 575,000 times! The average online viewing in a PPM site is under 15 mins, which is all it takes most guys to jerk out a load. It’s sites like this that rely on the hard work of others to try and make a quick buck. We simply will not sit by and watch others illegally profit from our stolen content.
If you want to shy away from our content because we are acting like a real company and protecting our content…then so be it. For every one like you we have 10 others that are supporting what we are doing and encouraging us to protect our brand and content. Hell, most of the stuff we find comes from tips sent in by our fans and customers.
I support Titan 100%. I cannot tell you how much of my content I’ve found and had removed from these free adult tube sites.
If we as producers don’t do something about these adult tube sites now, they will be the end of the adult industry. And I’m not exaggerating. We’re all hurting due to the economy; and these parasitic sites are not helping. I mean, what’s the point of opening up the store if you give the goods away???
And it doesn’t help our industry’s reputation either. All this explicit content is accessible to children. I’m afraid that when the feds go after these tube sites — and they will — they won’t stop with them, and they will go after legitimate and responsive websites and content producers. From past experiences we all know that all they need is an excuse to try to close us down — and these tube sites are giving them a good one.
You can send your hate emails to me directly
I have never watched a complete Titan movie, though I have seen a clip or so. They are dull and boring. The “amateur” websites put forth much better product with better models.
It is perfect really, Titan are clearing all the sites of their crap so we can get a better quality of video, GO TITAN!