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Tech Saturday, December 1st 2012 at 2:05 pm

Judge Slaps Pirate With $1.5 Million in Damages for Sharing Seven Porn Clips

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Let’s just get this out of the way immediately: Never, ever, miss the chance to defend yourself if you’re being accused of piracy. Regardless of whether you’re guilty to some degree, plaintiffs have consistently shown that they believe any infringement upon their content to be worth millions of dollars. This public service announcement is unfortunately far too late for Anwar Ogiste of Maryland, as a federal judge has already awarded a default judgment of $1.5 million to adult company Flava Works. Ogiste’s crime? Sharing seven porn videos.

This isn’t the first time Flava Works has brought a claim against one of their users. The company includes a unique code in all the downloads made by specific users, meaning they can be traced back to their accounts if they’re illegally shared. Using this, they won their case against Kywan Fisher last month, and apparently convinced the federal judge in Ogiste’s case to rule similarly.

According to TorrentFreak, $1.5 million is the largest amount capable of being rewarded as statutory damages under copyright law, and Flava Works has won a total of three cases with that amount in the past month. That means they’ve been awarded at least $4.5 million in damages. Between Fisher and Ogiste, they shared a grand total of 17 videos which amounted to $3 million in damages. That’s over $176,000 per flick.

That’s just a stupid amount of money for something so ubiquitous.

(via TorrentFreak)

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  • Liggerstuxin

    Use peerblock, as far as I know this is your best bet that’s free. Comcast always sends a warning if I don’t use it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002291703668 William Marcum

    No read story? Peer block can’t remove the “unique code in all the downloads made by specific users”. Smarter move is just don’t share video.

    Of course.. how can we be sure that someone didn’t steal these guy’s accounts, I mean honestly it’s not like hundreds of porn passwords aren’t shared online daily.

  • Rollin Bishop

    Not impossible, but unlikely. Also, it really doesn’t help when they don’t bother defending themselves and the judge gets to enter in a default judgment.

  • Steve

    What a load of crap. What next, $2 million fine for speeding, $5 million for pissing in public?

    A friend of mine got stabbed with a knife a few years back, he was lucky it missed his vital organs. They guy who stabbed him got a suspend sentence and ordered to pay his victim £1000… I bet if he reads this now that guy will be saying to himself ‘Thank god i only stabbed someone and not shared some porn online’

    I get the companies need to protect themselves but the punishment should always match the crime.

  • Anonymous

    This may not be agreeable to everybody, but Don’t share ANYTHING. Not Videos(especially not pirated), or still graphics, nor audio. There just is no such thing as too safe, in these times…

  • http://www.tastythailand.com Reeves

    Or just don’t live in the US.

    I’m an American that left the US years ago. I like having civil liberties and they barely exist anymore in America, not if the major corporations are involved. They’ll win in America’s messed up judicial system every time.

  • steve

    Usually its up to businesses to adjust with the times, businesses that fail to do it go out of business.

    That is unless you’re a multi-billion dollar business. Then you just throw money at politicians and launch false propaganda campaigns aimed at the ignorant to get the law changed to suit your agenda, which is usually greater profits.