CYBERSPACE – Crush Entertainment, owners of AssLikeWhoa.com and CashLikeWhoa.com, has won a wide-ranging legal victory against West Coast Productions, in an effort to protect its “Ass Like Whoa” trademark from infringement.The company took immediate action after finding out that West Coast would release a new video line called “Azz Like Whoa” on March 7 of this year.
Crush’s legal affairs director T. Victor Stevens said the company was deeply concerned by West Coast’s “Azz Like Whoa” title, and said Crush was prepared to dig in for a long legal battle if necessary.
“From the start we saw this move by West Coast as a blatant and egregious infringement on our Ass Like Whoa brand and we hired a top lawyer to make sure that West Coast was stopped,” Stevens said. “We thought that their tactic threatened the very existence of our company.
It was something we could not, and would not, tolerate.”
According to the terms of an out-of-court settlement, West Coast Productions must pay Crush an undisclosed amount in damages, pay all legal fees and costs incurred by Crush during, stop production of the “Azz Like Whoa” video line (only one volume had been produced under that name to date), pay for a worldwide recall of “Ass Like Whoa” DVDs and VHS products already distributed, and never again use the “Azz Like Whoa” name on any future products.
Any store owners and webmasters still selling WCP’s Azz Like Whoa video should contact West Coast Productions immediately for a copy of the recall notice and instructions on how to comply with the recall.
Crush Entertainment was represented by trademark attorney Holly Pranger of the Pranger Law Group, who is the same lawyer who recently helped three-time AVN performer of the year, Lexington Steele, win the rights to his domain name in a highly-publicized cybersquatting case.
“The adult entertainment industry is built almost entirely on trademarks, performer names and copyrighted material, all of which may be protected under federal and state laws, but I am still shocked by the amount of infringement that is tolerated,” Pranger said. “This industry is no different than any other business, and if you do not enforce your intellectual property rights you risk losing them.”
“This is a huge, clear-cut victory, and a very good day for the entire Crush Entertainment family,” Stevens said. “We are happy that this situation has been resolved. They are still recalling their videos, and now we can focus again on giving our fans the high-quality Ass Like
Whoa products they love and expect from us.”
