The New Yorker Profiles Copyright Lawsuit King Malibu Media

LOS ANGELES—Malibu Media, the company behind X-Art.com, got some impressive attention today when The New Yorker magazine posted a profile of the litigious porn producers under the headline, "The Biggest Filer of Copyright Lawsuits? This Erotica Web Site." In it, writer Gabe Friedman takes a non-judgmental look at the birth of the business, its quick expansion as a popular producer of quality short-form erotica, the eventual decline of subscriptions and the ultimate decision to begin suing end-users who had allegedly violated their copyrights. The article also works as a primer on this sort of copyright litigation, which Friedman explains uses American copyright law "designed primarily for private civil lawsuits, like the ones that Malibu Media has filed." Friedman also explains the road bumps Malibu Media has faced in courtrooms around the country as it attempts to tie individual IP addresses to individuals it believes have illegally downloaded videos for which it holds the copyright. But it is the scale of their litigation that is remarkable. Though revenue it has earned from filing these suits only accounts for about five percent of its income, according to Friedman, "In the past year, their company Malibu Media LLC has filed more than thirteen hundred copyright-infringement lawsuits—more of these cases than anyone else, accounting for a third of all U.S. copyright litigation during that time, according to the federal-litigation database Pacer—against people that they accuse of stealing their films on the Internet." Put another way, "As of early May, they had filed about thirty-eight per cent of all copyright suits in 2014." What is also likely to interest readers is the mom-and-pop aspect of both the business and the litigation effort. Malibu Media did not even exist in 2006, when "Colette Pelissier was selling houses in Southern California, and her boyfriend, Brigham Field, was working as a photographer of nude models. "Colette wanted to leave the real-estate business," writes Friedman, "so she convinced her boyfriend to start making adult films. 'I had this idea, when the real-estate market was cooling—you know, maybe we could make beautiful erotic movies,' she said." In 2013, now married and with several successful years under their belts, the Fields "purchased a sixteen-million-dollar coastal mansion in Malibu. Having found a niche in the crowded world of online pornography, X-art.com still had tens of thousands of fans shelling out money for its movies." But that same year saw subscriptions decline to below 50,000, and for the first time, "Quietly, the Fields were also making some extra money in another way: by becoming the biggest filer of copyright-infringement lawsuits in the nation." Though still producing original content, Collette, who has now changed her name to Pelissier Field, told Friedman that the lawsuits will continue, though she wishes there were alternatives to costly litigation. "Pelissier Field said that she wishes Congress would intervene with a solution that made litigation a last resort to deter piracy," concluded Friedman. "She also said that she and her husband have no plans to stop filing suits." “My husband is, like, ‘You’ve spent so much time doing this,’” Field said. “I’m, like, ‘If we don’t, who will?’” But perhaps the most striking thing about the article is that it fails to mention Prenda Law even once. That is sure to please Malibu Media, which has had to contend with inevitable comparisons to the now defunct "copyright troll" for a long time, though it is sure to equally displease the many people out there who relentlessly continue to attack media companies that hold people who illegally download copyrighted content to account. While the now defunct Prenda and its several aliases are not named, they are refernced in passing with respect to the all-important legal issue of joinder. Noted Friedman, referencing research conducted by a professor at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law, "A few other adult-film companies have named hundreds or even several thousand defendants in each complaint. Malibu Media, by contrast, has made it a practice to target just one defendant per case."