Mar
19
Pitbull, Flava Works Tackle Content Pirates
March 19, 2010 | 10 Comments
A raid conducted by U.S. Marshals this week against a retailer in New York City yielded more than 10,000 counterfeit DVDs. Among the items seized were films produced by Pitbull Productions, which has filed a lawsuit against the retailer, B&B Bookstore (116 Christopher St.), for “engaging in the duplication, importation, distribution, and/or sale of unauthorized merchandise infringing on copyrighted and trademarked properties,” the studio said. “Pitbull worked tirelessly to obtain sufficient evidence for the Federal Court to approve the raid, including long-term undercover operations which yielded information that many of the major adult gay movie studios had DVDs that were being bootlegged,” studio spokesperson Bruce Fleming said. In related news, Miami-based Flava Works announced this afternoon that it has “initiated lawsuits against two alleged copyright infringers… to put an end to the rampant stealing of its as well as other adult companies’ copyrighted material.” Flava Works has sued the DGSource.com forum as well as IStackPorn.net. CLICK HERE for more details…
At post time, the IStackPorn.net address was redirecting to a protected Twitter account, while the DGSource.com web address is still active.
“Until recently, only a handful of adult content providers have bothered to take serious legal action against these blatant infringers,” said a company rep.
“Today, Flava Works has declared that it will be joining [their] ranks and encouraging others to follow suit so that we may shut these pirates down for good.”
Flava Works alleges DGSource provides “a specialized framework through which infringement can take place [and] is just as culpable for the infringement as the individual users posting, uploading or linking to the copyrighted works.”
As well, “the individual behind IStackPorn has created a massive network of infringement through the use of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, as well as his own blogs, and is providing this material for free,” said the rep.
“Flava Works is confident that after taking down these two defendants, the rest will fall like dominos.” Towards that end, the studio has engaged attorney Jesse Lanshe of Chicago to spearhead their efforts
“We’re not in the business of having pirates reap the benefits of what we have sown. This blatant disregard for the law has to stop,” said Flava Works CEO Phillip Bleicher. “We’ve just opened the door to a fight that’s not going to go away anytime soon. We’re in it for the long haul and we’re not going to stop until we get back what’s rightfully ours.”
Until recently, few all-male adult entertainment companies and labels have actively sought legal action against copyright infringers. In addition to Flava Works and Pitbull Productions, they include Bel Ami, Kristen Bjorn Productions, Lucas Kazan Productions, Titan Media and web studio Corbin Fisher.
Comments
10 Comments so far
Oh no! I was just over that way last weekend! I will have to go back tomorrow and see what it looks like now. Thank you for the tip!
Alot about nothing. Who would want anything from flava works anyway? If the major Hollywood studios can not stop piracy, do you really thing a few porn companies can? What a joke. The music industry spent hundreds of millions of dollars going after music downloaders and still today you can find hundreds of share sites all over the web. Many share sites are overseas where US law can not touch them.
This appears to be a civil action, not a criminal action. The US Marshals were probably serving and executing a civil court order; ergo, “raid” is a bit deceptive.
This was a favorite haunt of mine. Somehow I always felt it was a little shady, but the prices most studios are charging can anybody really be blamed. They aren’t paying the performers great amounts of money to do some of the things we’ve all seen then do. So who really is getting rich from this? Those Companies that charge $40.- $90 just to watch someone screw. Nothing really has changed “Capitalism”. Don’t blame the little guy!
I would still however like to support Bull&Bull!!!
@ Rikki — u are obviously clue-less about the industry & what kind of $$$$$ it takes to make an adult film. 1.) Retail $$$ & Wholesale $$$ are 2 diff things. If a store charges $50 for a DVD (DUH!) the studio doesnt get that $$$ – try half! So imagine how many DVD’s need to be sold @ $25 to re-coup at min $10,000 spent on an adult film. So thanx for buying pirated stuff!! way to go
This is a dumb move. Nobody’s going to go out and buy pitbull’s $70 low quality crap videos…and flavaworks has the same quality videos you can find on xtube…..they should be greatful anybody posts their trash videos (its called free advertising). I bet flavaworks is going to see a dip in subscriptions and pitbull…how much more are they gonna waste chasing random internet posters before they realize they’ve blown tens of thousands with no real financial return? Meh, these lawsuits only attract more pirates who post all their junk. woot woot.
Well i’m personally glad that flavaworks is putting their foot down. I’m a big fan of their models and live shows. And I always pay to view their content. I think the same should go for everybody.
So am I…I am a sucker for their twink models baby star, qpid and snow bunnie, u can’t get hotter twinks than that. Buy any dvd release they produce featuring these hot power bottoms
I find it strange that anyone would bother to steal the Flava Works DVDS. Complaints from customers included the use of scenes from other releases used in new ones. I never watched them but the models all look the same usually, sticks for arms and legs with a dick. If the customers ever looked at more than the 2 hole and penis Flava DVDS would end up as penney Frizbees The real men and good looking ones always leave to work for real Porn companies that have decent ownership where they do not need Viagra because of what they are having sex with. We can all only hope the good ones get out before they are infected.
Ricki: The videos are sold on line by Flava and in fact at $50 or more per unit, visit the website, and in addition content is sold on the web.
Stan: Take a real good look at what you are paying for and if you still think it is worth anythinglet me know. I will sell you my bags of trash for $10.00 each plus shipping and handling, you will get more value than at Flava.