Can you copyright porn? That’s one of the big issues facing copyright law now.
Liuxia Wong received a letter last year from Hard Drive Productions claiming that she had used her IP address last year to share “Amateur Allure Jen” on BitTorrent. The porn studio told her that they would take her to court for $150,000 but she could settle for only $3,400. Wong didn’t take the bait and is taking the porn producer to court according to TorrentFreak.
Wong is fighting back and has hired Steven Yuen, an experienced IP litigator from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, to sue Hard Drive Productions. In the lawsuit, Wong alleges that she did not download the work in question and attacks the porn studio on multiple accounts.
Hard Drive claims that the infringement took place on March 28, 2011. Wong did her research and found out that the film didn’t release until April 22, 2011. She claims that the letters “were designed to coerce her into settling the case despite the absence of any facts supporting liability against her.”
The lawsuit also claims that the letter from Hard Drive says that Wong could be indicted even if her router was unsecured and somebody else uploaded it. An assertion she dismisses as “erroneous.”
The best part is that she even throws up the opinion that you can’t copyright porn:
“Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, known as the Copyright Clause, empowers the United States Congress: ‘To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries,” the lawsuit details, adding:
“Early Circuit law in California held that obscene works did not promote the progress of science and the useful arts, and thus cannot be protected by copyright.”
Wong is asking the court to declare that she is not liable for infringement. She is also asking that the court to declare the company’s movie as not copyrightable and is illegal due to Hard Drive engaging in “solicitation, conspiracy to commit prostitution, pimping and/or pandering” during the making of the film.
Hard Drive Productions, all in all, seems to be pretty bad at this claiming damages over copyright infringement thing. They failed to mitigate alleged damages since they didn’t use the DMCA to have offending torrents removed.
They also hired non-California licensed investigators to monitor torrents which is in violation of the California Business and Professions Code.
We have the entire lawsuit for your perusal. It’s a fascinating read and if it goes in Wong’s favor, it could change the porn industry, at least in California.