HOUSTON – Command Cinema and HotMovies emerged victorious earlier this month from a lawsuit in which the adult entertainment companies accused the operator of two “classic adult video” websites of pirating their copyrighted content.
Houston resident Floyd Hodges must pay undisclosed damages and attorney fees after a federal judge ruled dubbing porn in a foreign language does not render the works derivative enough to invalidate the original creator’s intellectual property rights.
The case began in March 2012, when anti-piracy firm RemoveYourContent LLC found copies of Command Cinema movies including Platinum Paradise, Neon Nights, Babylon Pink and Foxtrot on MegaClassicPorn.com and ClassicPornBox.com, both operated by Hodges. The websites offer for sale a large selection of classic adult videos released in the 1970s and ’80s.
RemoveYourContent alerted Command Cinema’s exclusive distributor, HotMovies, which called in attorney Evan Stone and set the lawsuit in motion.
“RemoveYourContent had already been working with HotMovies.com for years in an effort to limit piracy of certain movies for which HotMovies.com holds exclusive internet distribution rights,” said Eric Green of RemoveYourContent. “The Command Cinema line has always been a priority for us.
“After confirming that Hodges was running an illegal pirate operation, we reached out to HotMovies.com and Command [Cinema], who then pursued legal remedy through the courts. Stone & Vaughan PLLC signed on to handle the case, and we are happy to report the [District Court for the] Southern District of Texas has ruled in our favor.”
Stone, lead counsel for Stone & Vaughan, said presiding judge Lynn N. Hughes was both fair and expedient in his handling of the case.
“Uniquely, [Judge Huges] managed the entire discovery process himself, ordering the parties to promptly disclose the evidence he felt was most relevant,” Stones revealed. “This was very convenient overall, but restrictive for some areas of inquiry.”
In his defense, Hodges argued the copies of the films he offered for sale did not constitute copyright infringement because they were dubbed in German. Stone countered that such an alteration in an adult film was not sufficiently transformative to make a difference.
“One need not examine the films themselves to know that the meat of an adult motion picture is typically not the dialogue,” Stone said.
The judge agreed with Stone.
“I hope this sends a clear message to other site operators profiting from stolen content,” said Cecil Howard, the iconic producer-director behind Command Cinema. “I invested my time, my money and a lot of sweat to make special movies for a discerning audience.
“These pirate sites are offensive, illegal and in general disgust me,” Howard added. “Take note: We will stand up and defend what is ours.”
