October 4, 2007 | The Biz

Titan sinks pirates

Porn pirates beware: Titan Media wants to put you out of business!

The San Francisco-based gay porn studio filed a lawsuit in California naming Gilbert Michael Gonzales as a ring leader, with 21 “John Doe” defendants, in a copyright infringement case involving over 45 Titan films. This translates into more than 100,000 illegal downloads from which Titan never saw a single cent.

The men are accused of using several different blogs through which the illegal films were trafficked. The perpetrators relied on sites like blogspot.com and Ning.com to promote themselves, falsely believing they could remain anonymous.

“The message we are sending is that you can run, but you cannot hide”, says Keith Webb, Vice President of Titan Media. “Mr. Gonzales thought he could hide behind anonymous blogs and postings, but he was seriously mistaken. People need to realize that nothing they do online is anonymous. Every single posting, upload, download or page view is tracked and recorded, and can eventually be traced back to the individual. Mr. Gonzales taunted us in his online blog postings to try and catch him and shut him down…so we did. If you steal Titan Media property, we will identify you and we will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.” [more]

This is not Titan's first campaign to end piracy of their products. They have already won over 40 other copyright infringement lawsuits

“Although there is only one named defendant in the initial complaint, we know that there are at least 21 additional John Doe defendants to be added,” says Gill Sperlein, General Counsel for Titan Media. “We are in the process of subpoenaing the various internet service providers to determine the true names and address of the other active members of the piracy ring and will add their names to the complaint as they are discovered.”

Nothing in this world is ever really free ... no, not even porn.