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FLINT, MI — from www.mlive.com – It appears that pirates can claim victory over porn stars in a Flint legal battle — for the time being.
The attorney for adult film maker Patrick Collins dropped a lawsuit last Wednesday in Flint federal court against people who he claimed illegally pirated his film, “Asian Booty.”
Collins, owner of the adult production company Elegant Angel, claimed in his lawsuit filed in November 2011, that 27 individuals, all referred to as John Doe in the lawsuit and identified only by their Internet Protocol addresses, illegally downloaded the film produced by his company.
The suit claims that the individuals used BitTorrent, a common online peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol, to obtain an illegal copy of his film.
Court records show allegedly illegal downloads originated from users all over the state of Michigan, including: Flint, Flushing, Grand Blanc, Detroit and Midland.
Collins’ attorney, Troy-based John S. Hone, could not be reached for comment.
Hone states in court records that Collins plans to further investigate and confirm information provided by Internet service providers about the John Does identified in the suit. Collins could eventually re-file suits against each defendant following his investigation, court records show.
This type of legal battle is an increasingly-common occurrence for those involved in the adult video industry, said Dominic Ford.
Ford is co-owner of Porn Guardian, a division of parent company Piracy Stops Here. Porn Guardian works on behalf of 350 different adult entertainment brands to find illegal versions of their work on the Internet and collect evidence for legal action.
“Everybody in the industry has seen sales decrease because of piracy,” said Ford.
Within hours of adult videos being released for sale, Ford said scenes, or entire videos, can be found for illegal download on the Internet.
Ford said adult film companies usually take three different legal approaches when it comes to cracking down on piracy.
Companies can track down and file lawsuits against end-users, or those downloading the illegal material, much like the way Collins did.
They could also target the individual who initially uploads the video onto the Internet or go after the websites that host the illegal files.
Ford’s company is working on one such suit now.
A $34.8 million federal lawsuit was filed against file-locker site Oron.com, according to adult industry source XBiz.com.
This isn’t the first time Collins has filed a suit like this.
Court records show that similar suits had been previously filed in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Dismissals were common in those cases as well, court records show.
Despite the suits becoming more common, Ford said some of the cases can be difficult to prove because the Internet service providers tend to protect the identification of their customers that are illegally downloading files.
In Collins’ case in Flint, Comcast Cable provided Internet service to 13 of the John Does.
“Comcast will act when we receive appropriate, legally sufficient legal process (subpoena or court order, for example), and will permit disputes between users to be settled by them or in the courts rather than investigating the merits of contrasting views,” said Comcast regional public relations director Patrick Paterno in an email sent to The Flint Journal. “We will, however, exercise our own judgment about when and how to act to protect our organization, our subscribers, and our network from harm or liability, if necessary.”
Despite the struggles the industry faces trying to stop piracy, Ford says he believes their efforts are having a positive impact by sending a warning to other would-be downloaders that there could be repercussions for their actions.