The lawyer has filed at least a half-dozen lawsuits within the past two weeks targeting hundreds of "John Doe" defendants, accusing them of stealing copyright movies ranging from gay erotica to the cult classic, "Debbie Does Dallas."
The lawyer, John L. Steele, has set up a website as the Media Copyright Group in Chicago. The site advertises that the company "tracks, identifies and pursues damages against people who pirate copyrighted media via P2P networks." THR, Esq. has the lawsuit he filed on behalf of Hard Drive Productions, owner of the website Amateur Allure.
What makes all this even more interesting is that Steele's law firm website utters not a word of any of it or mentions any practice relating to copyright law. Rather, the site describes both the firm and Steele as a family law attorney who also handles consumer bankruptcies.
Steele's not alone in going after porn pirates, says THR, Esq. In Texas, lawyer Evan Stone has filed lawsuits against hundreds of alleged pirates on behalf of film and video companies.
So if you are sharing porn on BitTorrent, watch out for the copyright patrol.
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Courts have ruled against nearly all peer-to-peer music sharing services in court cases ranging for over the last ten years. It would make sense if they ruled against porn sharing as well.
The Supreme Court ruled on two significant cases for control of Internet sharing in 2005 in NCTA v. Brand X and MGM v. Grokster, in which the Supreme Court decided in a 6:3 decision against the companies.
The Brand X case dealt more with internet service providers, but the Grokster case falls right in with sharing porn on sites like BitTorrent.
The Grokster case held that company could be sued for inducing copyright infringement for acts taken in the course of marketing file sharing software.
Last month US District Court Judge Kimba Wood found Mark Gorton liable for copyright infringement and unfair competition, relying mostly on the Supreme Court judgment against peer-to-peer music service Grokster.
"The evidence establishes that LimeWire users directly infringed plaintiffs' copyrights, and that LimeWire engaged in purposeful conduct intended to foster that infringement," Wood said.
Woods said free distribution of the recordings through LimeWire competes with plaintiffs' sales of the recordings- porn would be viewed in the same way.
Considering that porn grosses more money than the music industry each year, it is surprising the industry has gone this long without filing suit.
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