Malibu Media continues to file more copyright lawsuits in Illinois (14 cases), Michigan (4 cases), and New York (12 cases). They filed 30 cases on September 21 and 23, meaning they have filed over 100 lawsuits so far in September alone.
Malibu Media owns the X-Art brand of adult films and is notorious for mass filing lawsuits against anonymous internet subscribers, referred to as John Does, and identified only by their IP addresses. They allege the John Does downloaded and shared their copyrighted films using BitTorrent networks.
The Plaintiff argues that in order to properly serve the lawsuits on defendants, they must get their identity through the subscribers’ Internet Service Provider (ISP). Courts routinely grant subpoenas to allow the Plaintiff to demand the identity of an internet subscriber from the ISP.
Although these lawsuits are filed regularly, they are serious. It may be tempting for a defendant to hope that the Plaintiff forgets about their case but failure to fight the lawsuit can result in tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages depending on the number of alleged infringements. In civil court, not defending your case can be seen as the same as admitting fault.
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