Mile High Gets Part of Martha's Vineyard Lawsuit Thrown Out

AQUINNAH, Mass.—The lawsuit, filed in March of 2018 by Martha's Vineyard homeowner Leah Bassett against Mile High Media, directors Nica Noelle and Diana DeVoe and several others, finally saw a win for the defense yesterday, as U.S. District Judge Patti B. Saris denied Bassett's attempt to get a restraining order against the sale of the adult videos which Noelle and DeVoe shot at her house in the winter of 2014-'15. The fracas began after photographer/videographer Joshua Darling answered an ad that Bassett had posted online to rent out her house on Martha's Vineyard for the winter months, but when Bassett asked her parents, who also live on the property at 7 Skye Lane, to inspect the house after a few months, according to Bassett's complaint, "They were each shocked by the deplorable state of condition in which they found their daughter's personal residence." The long and the short of it is, Noelle and DeVoe were shooting adult movies at the location—activity that would hardly raise an eyebrow in Los Angeles—and Bassett promptly ordered director, crew and actors to vacate the premises, but when Bassett returned to her house in May of 2015, she "discovered that the physical damages to her personal residence were considerably more extensive than her parents had realized and/or reported," and amounted to a claimed total of $15,609. (Mile High denies the damages.) But that wasn't all Bassett was upset about. Seems publicity shots of the location were posted to the internet, which she really didn't like—and after purchasing some of the movies shot at her location, Bassett really lost it, charging in her complaint that "the Mile High-associated Defendants utilized nearly every room of her home for their porn production purposes." But what the recent injunction application was about was the fact that some of Bassett's paintings, photographs, wall portraits and handmade pottery appear in the Mile High productions, which Bassett claims infringe on her copyrights for the pieces. But the judge wasn't having any of that, and denied the injunction on the basis that earlier, Mile High had "voluntarily agreed" to remove the photos and videos from distribution to the extent that they were within the company's control. Whether this means that Mile High has re-edited the features and their "extras" to remove the "offending" artwork and/or changed the box art so Bassett's artwork is no longer easily visible is unknown, but it's clear that Mile High is doing whatever it can to make this lawsuit go away. "Although this does not extend to third parties who continue to distribute unauthorized versions of the films and photographs," the judge said of the removal motion, "it is as much as the court could achieve by entering a preliminary injunction against defendants." What is clear is that Bassett has a real "hard-on" for Mile High. Earlier in October, Bassett made a motion that the company turn over to her and her attorneys Mile High's tax returns, based on a "long-standing suspicion" that the company was engaging in tax evasion—as well as turn over information about any entity that the company has "any ownership, partnership and/or agency association with" in connection with the videos' production—demands that Mile High described as "overly broad and ambiguous," not to mention "Salem witch trial tactics," and further charged that the motive behind the material request was aimed at getting "personal and financially sensitive" information about individuals affiliated with the company who hadn't yet been sued by Bassett. "She doesn’t address why she is entitled to it, because she can’t," Mile High's attorneys wrote in its response to Bassett's motions. "Rather, she reverts to Salem witch trial tactics—for example, demanding that Mile High produce its tax returns to prove that it’s not a tax evader (just because she ‘suspects’ it), even though she hasn’t an iota of evidence to support the theory and even though it has no relationship to this case whatsoever. ... All of this is meant to distract from the point, provoke responses from the defendants on stale and unrelated topics and inflame the court."