YNOT – A U.S. federal court has awarded gay adult production company Corbin Fisher a $63,000 default judgment against a Canadian resident the company accused of illegally sharing Corbin Fisher content on BitTorrent networks.
The court ordered Quynn Alan Phillips to pay $30,000 each for two scenes the studio traced to Phillips’ torrent accounts and issued a permanent injunction barring future theft of the studio’s content.
According to Corbin Fisher General Counsel Marc J. Randazza, the judgment was significant because it makes it clear that courts may assign a value to adult films vastly at odds with defendants’ misunderstanding of potential liability.
“We have had a number of defendants and defense attorneys in our cases argue that courts will only award us $750, the statutory minimum, in torrent cases,” Randazza said. “Mr. Phillips now knows that this position is without merit, and it should send a message to the defendants in our other torrent cases. Corbin Fisher material is valuable, and courts will see fit to impose reasonable judgments against intellectual property thieves.”
The judgment also makes clear that simply ignoring a lawsuit will not make it go away. Phillips, who goes by the screen name “qalanalt” on a number of torrent sites, responded to the lawsuit by corresponding with the court in the form of a complaint letter. However, once the court allowed the case to move forward, Phillips stopped participating.
“We can, and will, continue to press forward to collect the judgment against him,” said Corbin Fisher Chief Operating Officer Brian Dunlap. “Whether those engaged in the unauthorized distribution and reproduction of others’ intellectual property like it or not, courts have regularly and consistently come down on the side of studios who are engaging in efforts to protect their content. This is our latest legal victory on this front, though it certainly will not be our last.”
During the past two years, Corbin Fisher has prevailed in a number of lawsuits against file-sharers. Notable victories shutting down tube site DudeVu and the award of a $1.75-million dollar judgment against DVD counterfeiter Eric Brown.
