Men Fined $1.5 Million Each For Pirating Gay Porn

Here’s a bit of a wake up call for those who thought sharing porn online would have no repercussions, as Kywan Fisher of Virginia and Cormelian Brown of Delaware have each been fined $1.5 million for using their paid memberships of gay porn sites to download videos that they then illegally shared on GayTorrents.net.

Forbes reports that the summary judgements – which were the maximum allowed – were entered against the men after they failed to respond to summonses or show up in court. Cases against 13 other defendants are ongoing, with at least two heading for trial. The CEO of porn producer Flava Works, which launched the suits against the men, commented, “We want to go all the way. We want them to understand you can’t just steal.”

He added that with the judgements against the two men, “That was the maximum we were entitled to, so it wasn’t unexpected. But I thought they might tone it down.”

The men were tracked down due to the fact the site includes individual codes on each of its videos, so it knows exactly which members originally downloaded them from the site. It then used the details it had on file for these paying members to sue them for sharing the files.

Flava Works, which specialises in black and latino porn such as Mixxxed Nuts and the Thug Boy series, isn’t the only gay porn company who’ve gone after those who’ve shared their videos. It is perhaps unsurprising, as while the legit film industry has spent years campaigning against online filesharing, it’s believed to have hit the bottom line of porn producers far more tangibly. However some have seen the porn industry’s dogged tactics as a slightly bullying, including reports that some people who say they never illegally downloaded or shared porn have paid fines simply so their name wouldn’t publicly be released in connection with pornography. Whether there’s any truth to that is difficult to tell.

Kywan Fisher and Cormelian Brown are still trying to ignore the lawsuits as well as attempts to get in touch with them, but they’d better do something soon as they’ve certainly got a lot of cash they’re expected to pay.