Check out our new advertisers www.cammansion.com and www.eruptionxl.com Follow AdultFYI at twitter@adultfyi1; Follow Gene Ross at twitter@GeneRoss3
PHOENIX – from www.myfoxphoenix.com – Sued by internet porn companies for thousands of dollars, but they say they’ve never visited a pornographic web site in their life.
Internet porn companies are going after people illegally downloading their movies — but these porn companies may be targeting the wrong people.
Anyone who has a wireless internet connection at home better make sure it’s password protected, because if it’s not, anyone within range can download whatever they want — including pornography — under your name.
One Arizona man learned this lesson the hard way, and his attorney says the company came after him for more than $30,000.
“There’s a great deal of emotional stress that goes into this,” says Nelson Mixon [pictured] of Cavanagh Law Firm.
Mixon is the attorney who represented an Arizona man sued by an adult film company called “Raw Films” [Malibu Media]. They accused him of downloading one of their pornographic movies illegally.
Nelson Mixon says his client was shocked and embarrassed because he had never even heard of the film he was accused of downloading.
“My client was very upset, he was distraught he did not understand how these accusations could be made against him.”
But what happened to his client is happening across the country. Critics refer to it as “copyright trolling,” much the same way the music industry cracked down on those illegally downloading material.
The porn industry is doing the same thing, subpoenaing IP addresses from internet providers, and then suing whomever that IP address is attached to.
The problem, says Mixon, is there’s no way of proving that the person it’s registered to is the person who downloaded the film.
“The vast number of unsecured wireless internet connections in this country makes it difficult to predict whether any individual person used the computer associated with that IP address.”
But like in so many cases like this, Mixon’s client ended up settling out of court to avoid the expense of litigation as well as humiliation.
“My understanding is for many of these companies this is more profitable than producing and selling pornography.”
The company isn’t commenting right now. Bottom line — make sure you password protect your wireless internet connection.
There are some defendants who are choosing to fight back against this. A woman out of Kentucky actually just filed her own lawsuit against 5 companies that targeted her.