Titan Media advertise themselves as ‘the premier creator of all-male erotica’ (aka ‘gay porn’), and they are known to go after sites and individuals who they say are illegally using their content. Gilbert Gonzales, who regularly posted infringing files on his weblog, was one of the key players according to the company,

In April, Gonzales was served with a $1.275 million default judgment for uploading 17 films to file hosting sites, but that didn’t stop him. He continued to share the work of Titan Media and its parent company Io Group Inc., and often accompanied his uploads with the message: ‘I will never stop sharing what I have with others.’

According to a report from AVN, the court was not amused by Gonzales’ repeated and defiant offenses. Judge Marilyn Hall Patel wrote in a second order for injunctive relief that, if he continues to share infringing material, “the court shall issue a warrant for the arrest of Gilbert Michael Gonzales.”

Since the regular anti-piracy outfits (MediaDefender excluded) don’t want to be associated with companies such as Titan Media, with the CEO of BayTSP saying: “We don’t want to be known in the porn space,” they had to go after the pirates themselves. With some success it seems, as the company managed to track down the remaining 21 “John Doe’s” that were listed in last year’s complaint.

Most of the 21 others have already decided to settle for a substantial, but undisclosed amount. Among these men were architects, restaurant owners and several married men, according to Io Group vice president Keith Webb, as if that should be some sort of surprise.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve reported how parts of the adult content industry is aiming to tackle sites which they believe are involved in the illegal distribution of their intellectual property.

Titan Media advertise themselves as ‘the premier creator of all-male erotica’, (aka ‘gay porn’) and they are also cracking down on sites and individuals who they say are illegally using their content.

Previously, after the CEO of anti-piracy company BayTSP refused to chase porn file sharers saying: “We don’t want to be known in the porn space”, companies like Titan had to go it alone, even going as far as complaining directly to KaZaA in 2004.

No stranger to taking (or at least threatening) legal action against P2P in more recent years, Titan has previously targeted sharers on the eDonkey and other networks, including several blogs.

Now, according to industry publication AVN, Titan Media has shut down what it calls ‘an online gay porn piracy ring’, which in reality were half a dozen blogs (some hosted by Google) carrying links to gay porn stored on sites such as Rapidshare.

The lawsuit filed in the Northern District of California names Gilbert Michael Gonzales (aka ‘MikeyG’) as the brains behind the operation, also listed 21 ‘John Doe’ as defendants and alleges copyright infringement of 45 Titan Media productions.

President of Titan Media, Keith Webb told AVN: “The message we are sending is that you can run, but you cannot hide. Mr. Gonzalez thought he could hide behind anonymous blogs and postings, but he was seriously mistaken. People need to realize that nothing they do online is anonymous. Every single posting, upload, download, or page view is tracked and recorded, and can eventually be traced back to the individual. Mr. Gonzales taunted us in his online blog postings to try and catch him and shut him down…so we did. If you steal Titan Media property, we will identify you and we will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.”

Back in 2004, Titan admitted tracking down those it said infringed its copyrights and threatening them with legal action. However, as an alternative to a messy and costly lawsuit, it offered alleged file-sharers an amnesty in return for them taking out a valid subscription to Titan Media’s products. Titan did not immediately respond to emails requesting a comment so we are unable to confirm if this is still the case.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.