Malibu Media operates the website X-art.com<\/em>, which hosts short erotic films on a subscription basis. The website claims to hold more than seven hundred erotic videos featuring models from the United States, Europe, South America, and other regions. Subscription plans range from 19.95 dollars to 99.95 dollars.<\/p>\n Around 2011, Malibu Media observed that its business was being adversely affected by widespread piracy of its videos on BitTorrent networks and through other means. Following an internal review, the company adopted a legal enforcement strategy. It began tracking IP addresses from which its films were being downloaded and filing copyright infringement suits against individuals associated with those addresses.<\/p>\n As of September 2015, one report estimated that Malibu Media had filed 4,771 copyright suits. The company’s filings accounted for approximately thirty percent of all copyright suits filed in the United States in a particular year. Unlike the typical approach of seeking an order against a large number of unknown defendants in a single action, Malibu Media’s practice was to file a separate suit against each individual defendant.<\/p>\n The strategy initially yielded favourable results. The volume of litigation brought the website wider attention and generated a substantial number of settlements. Because being identified as a viewer of illegally distributed pornographic content carries social stigma, many individuals preferred to settle confidentially rather than contest the proceedings. Encouraged by early success, Malibu Media pursued the approach with increasing intensity.<\/p>\n The strategy was not without significant criticism. Several copyright actions were brought against elderly persons, shared network users, and non-resident individuals, drawing censure from commentators and courts alike. One Ohio court went so far as to characterise Malibu Media as a copyright troll in a published judgement. A substantial body of opinion has formed holding that the company’s conduct, while legally grounded, raises ethical questions.<\/p>\n Despite the opposition and occasional setbacks, Malibu Media has continued to pursue copyright enforcement. A number of legal scholars take the view that X-art.com is a legitimate business producing creative, copyrightable content and is therefore entitled to enforce its rights. The legal foundation for the strategy is sound; isolated adverse outcomes do not warrant an abandonment of the overall approach.<\/p>\n The critical factor underpinning Malibu Media’s settlement success is the social stigma attached to pornographic content consumption. It is doubtful whether a similarly structured enforcement campaign by a copyright owner in a different content category would achieve comparable settlement rates in the absence of that stigma.<\/p>\n The broader question of reducing copyright piracy to commercially acceptable levels remains unresolved. A piecemeal enforcement approach of the kind adopted by Malibu Media is one available tool, but the conditions enabling its effectiveness are specific and not readily transferable to other content industries.<\/p>\n This article is for general information and does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult a qualified attorney before acting on any matter discussed here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Malibu Media\u2019s copyright enforcement through numerous individual lawsuits has reshaped the fight against porn piracy. Their approach leverages social stigma to encourage settlements, but it remains contentious and may not work for other content owners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":66,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[578,31,93,7496,7494,7495,7497,587],"class_list":["post-30028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-copyrights","tag-anti-piracy-strategy","tag-copyright-infringement","tag-copyright-law","tag-legal-settlements","tag-malibu-media","tag-porn-piracy","tag-united-states-law","tag-x-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30028"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149912,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30028\/revisions\/149912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Enforcement Strategy<\/h2>\n
Initial Success and Growing Criticism<\/h2>\n
Assessment of the Strategy<\/h2>\n
Disclaimer<\/h2>\n