Andre Yoskowitz
4 Nov 2012 15:01
Kywan Fisher has been fined $1.5 million for pirating and sharing 10 gay porn films via torrent networks.
Flava Works, the creator of the films, was awarded $150,000 per movie by a federal court in Illinois. The award is the largest in history for a file-sharing case.
In court, Flava Works presented sufficient evidence again Fisher, and the defendant did not actually defend himself against the claims. Flava embeds unique codes into its films that customers pay to view and the company easily found the codes and connected it back to Fisher, who is a paying customer of the movies.
Once they were uploaded to torrent networks, the films were then downloaded 3449 times.
In their argument, Flava says Fisher exhibited "willful copyright infringement" and completely violated the terms and conditions of the pay-to-view video service. Because Mr. Fisher did not defend himself, or even object, US Judge John Lee issued a default judgement, along with the large fine.
Flava originally sued 15 file sharers but dropped all the rest of the cases citing lack of evidence.