August 17, 2017
Out TV Exec Sued for $1.2M for Allegedly Torrenting Gay Porn
READ TIME: 2 MIN.
The openly gay president of the cable channel WE TV is being sued for $1.2 million by a porn company, which alleges the exec knowingly torrented and distributed gay porn, according to JRL Charts.
Flava Works, which specializes in creating porn starring models of color, claims Marc Juris, the president of WE TV, joined the site as a member, downloaded a number of videos and then illegally uploaded them on peer-to-peer file-sharing websites, including Gay-Torrents.org and GayTorrent.ru, according to court documents. (WE TV is owned by AMC.)
"Marc Juris was issued a cease-and-desist over alleged sharing and was urged to settle out of court [but he] refused," Flava Works CEO Phil Bleicher told JRL Charts. "We have ample evidence to prove that its him-from matching emails, IP, logs and usernames-and he continued to share our copyrighted works."
Bleicher also alleges the TV exec filed a counter suit under "John Doe," claiming Flava Works is blackmailing its subscribers by filing boilerplate lawsuits and threatening to out them as customers.
"Capitalizing on the social stigma of its own product, Flava Works has apparently discovered a lucrative side business: extorting money from former subscribers by threatening to expose them as consumers of gay porn," "John Doe" wrote in a complaint filed Tuesday. "Even if the accusation is false, most users reluctantly pay rather than be outed in court documents as a gay porn user-especially if the victim has chosen to keep his sexual orientation private."
This isn't the first time Bleicher's company has sued people for uploading their content. In 2012, Flava Works was awarded $3 million after suing individuals who torrented their media, Forbes reports,
"Flava Works models and staff spend countless hours producing our high quality videos and images only to have a few people steal them and distribute to these illegal file sharing websites. This will stop, one lawsuit at a time," the CEO said.
[H/T Torrent Freak]
[H/T New Now Next]
