Today In Frivolous Lawsuits

Some porn outfit sued in California court to stop the distribution of free online porn. The company wasn’t alleging that their content was being stolen, they just don’t like the idea of free porn, period.

“The ubiquitous distribution of free adult videos through redtube.com has had a massive negative impact on the business model of adult website proprietors,” charged the complaint against Redtube owner Bright Imperial Limited of Hong Kong. “Now that consumers have the ability to watch high quality adult videos for free on redtube.com, fewer are making the choice to pay other adult website proprietors for the same content.” Thus, Redtube.com has caused “many millions of dollars of damages to proprietors of adult entertainment websites,” including those of the plaintiff in this instance, one Kevin Cammarata of Los Angeles, California. This, he charged, was a violation of California’s Unfair Practices Act.

An appeals court has dismissed the case as a SLAPP suit, one that is “intended to censor, intimidate and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition.”

UPDATE: Despite what some think, this was not a clever bit of guerrilla marketing but a complex case with multiple defendants.