Porn Can’t Be Copyrighted, Says FileSharing Defendant

February 8, 2012 by
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Entertainment Industry, Legal P2P News & Issues 

In recent news the Hard Drive Productions (an adult movie production studio) versus “Does” who allegedly downloaded their materials case has taken an interesting turn when a woman accused of downloading “Amateur Allure Jen” claimed that copyright laws do not apply to adult clips since they’re not copyrightable, the ArsTechnica report reveals.

The woman in question is Liuxia Wong of Solano County, California, and her petition for declaratory relief explains to the federal court in San Francisco:

Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the US Constitution defines the purpose of copyright:

“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”

And since acronyms like P.O.V. or M.I.L.F. are not to be associated with keywords like “science” and “useful arts”, they do not qualify under copyright laws, do they?
Therefore, “copyright is authorized only for works which promote the progress of science and the useful arts,” said the woman’s lawyer.

“Early Circuit law in California held that obscene works did not promote the progress of science and the useful arts, and thus cannot be protected by copyright,” the brief also notes, while underlining this point several times:

Hard Drive’s work does not promote the progress of science.
Hard Drive’s work does not promote the useful arts.
Hard Drive has judicially admitted that its work is adult pornography.
Hard Drive’s work depicts obscene material.
Plaintiff is informed and believes, and thereon alleges that to create the work, Hard Drive and its agents and/or its employees violated laws which prohibited pimping, pandering, solicitation and prostitution, including any claims of conspiracy.
Hard Drive’s work depicts criminal acts and/or conduct.
Hard Drive’s work is not copyrightable.

However, Hard Drive Productions is no newbie regarding copyright lawsuits, and their affairs are what some people may call suspicious. For example, last August a California judge smashed the company’s claims that 188 alleged pirates could be sued together in one go.

“Even if the IP addresses at issue in this motion all came from a single swarm, there is no evidence to suggest that each of the addresses ‘acted in concert’ with all of the others,” federal Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero told the anti-piracy team of Steele Hansmeier.

“In fact, the nearly six-week span covering the activity associated with each of the addresses calls into question whether there was ever common activity linking the addresses in this case.”

Later on, Hard Drive lawyers tried a different approach by going to Washington DC with a case including 1,500 does, and a grudge against the advocacy group EFF.
EFF is “opposed to any effective enforcement and litigation of intellectual property law,” explains one of their latest filings.

As for Mrs. Wong, her ISP disclosed her name, address, and phone number to Hard Drive’s lawyers, thus putting her in the position of either settling for $3,400 or face a $150,000 lawsuit. In response, she denies the accusations of downloading any adult material.

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