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Online video company Malibu Media filed more than 40 copyright infringement complaints in October, all aimed at unnamed defendants.
The lawsuits, filed from October 6 to 9, claimed that the defendants have illegally downloaded pornographic material through file-sharing protocol BitTorrent.
One of the lawsuits, filed at the US District Court for the Northern District of California, Oakland Division, claimed that the defendant was a “habitual and persistent BitTorrent user and copyright infringer”.
Malibu is seeking a jury trial, injunctive relief, an order that the defendant delete the media files, and an award of statutory damages.
This is not Malibu’s first time in court.
In 2015, TBO reported that one of the company’s copyright disputes ignited a debate over whether the term ‘copyright troll’ can be used by the defendant.
The video company had previously sued US resident Michael Harrison for copyright infringement at the US District Court for the Southern District of Indiana.
In a pre-trial motion, Malibu asked the court to stop Harrison’s lawyers from using the terms ‘copyright troll’, ‘pornographer’, ‘porn purveyor’ and ‘extortionist’.
According to Malibu, the terms would “only serve to inflame the jury”, which would “abandon its impartiality”.
Harrison bit back, filing an objection arguing that Malibu’s litigation history is relevant to the dispute.
He went on to define a copyright troll as a plaintiff “more focused on the business of litigation than on selling or licensing their [copyright] to third parties to sell a product or service”.
This was first published on World IP Review.
Malibu Media, copyright, copyright infringement, piracy, copyright troll
