March 1, 2008 | The Biz

Titan slams video store for pirating

On Feb. 19, Titan Media filed suit against a Houston video store for content piracy. Michael James Deitcher and his store, Q-Video, are named as defendants for allegedly making unauthorized copies of 17 Titan titles before renting them to customers.

“We get an enormous number of tips from our customers,” said Gill Sperlein, Titan's lawyer. “They also call us when they feel they’ve been taken advantage of by someone on eBay or other auction sites.”

This particular case came to light when a customer called Titan to complain after the DVD he rented from Q-Video did not include any of the DVD extras he expected. The DVD's title was even hand lettered.   

“We estimate from our investigations of the [peer-to-peer] networks that for every copy of a title we sell, 10 more are lost to content thieves,” Sperlein added. “Obviously we want to get reimbursed for all the sales we didn’t get because [Q-Video was] renting unauthorized copies, but we also want to make sure a message gets out to other retailers that we will aggressively pursue this kind of conduct.”

Titan is seeking $150,000 in damages per title.