FLAVA WORKS SUES ADAM4ADAM.COM FOR TRADEMARK, COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
CHICAGO, IL (NOVEMBER 11, 2014) â Flava Works has announced that it has continued its tough stance on Internet porn piracy by filing a federal lawsuit in the Southern District of Florida against the gay hookup website Adam4Adam.com and itsâ owner and operator Marc Parent.
Marc Parent has created a gay social dating website that uses copyrighted images to promote and sell third party products, misleading customers into purchasing these products and services.
Phillip Bleicher, CEO of Flava Works says: âFlava Works did not license Adam4Adam to use its copyrighted works to promote these products and services that have no affiliation with our company. Despite repeated attempts to have them cease this copyright and trademark infringement, they continued to infringe on our works.â
Re: Flava Works sues adam4adam.com for trademark, copyright infringement
What are you claiming they’re doing? It wasn’t altogether clear in the complaint… I havent used that site in years so I’m not familiar… do they post other people’s photos and videos?
(I saw where you sent DMCA’s for offending profiles-- so you’re right… they should have taken them down-- but what was with all the advertisements they were running for your sites? Are you saying those did not point to your sites?)
I’m not an attorney but I think the section where you request that the judge order they turn over Adam4Adam to you is apt in its title… Prayer… lol
Re: Flava Works sues adam4adam.com for trademark, copyright infringement
[QUOTE=britton;154283]What are you claiming they’re doing? It wasn’t altogether clear in the complaint… I havent used that site in years so I’m not familiar… do they post other people’s photos and videos?
(I saw where you sent DMCA’s for offending profiles-- so you’re right… they should have taken them down-- but what was with all the advertisements they were running for your sites? Are you saying those did not point to your sites?)
I’m not an attorney but I think the section where you request that the judge order they turn over Adam4Adam to you is apt in its title… Prayer… lol[/QUOTE]
Among not taking profiles down that contained our images, the main issue was they were advertising third party websites using our copyrighted images.
Customers thought when they were clicking and joining these sites based on Flava Works images located on the ads on Adam4Adam.com. Some of these sites (a complete list will come out in discovery and in future lawsuits) were operated by Boyfriend Bucks and some others that are listed here http://www.signbucks.com/news/blacklist - among others sites. In addition, customers complained that when they joined these sites (thinking they were Flava Works sites - with the click through via Adam4Adam.com) these third party websites would slam their credit cards for additional charges for items like Viagra and other websites. Although this complaint only addresses the Adam4Adam.com infringements, a complaint against these other websites is forthcoming.
Re: Flava Works sues adam4adam.com for trademark, copyright infringement
[QUOTE=FlavaWorks;154288]Among not taking profiles down that contained our images, the main issue was they were advertising third party websites using our copyrighted images.
Customers thought when they were clicking and joining these sites based on Flava Works images located on the ads on Adam4Adam.com. Some of these sites (a complete list will come out in discovery and in future lawsuits) were operated by Boyfriend Bucks and some others that are listed here http://www.signbucks.com/news/blacklist - among others sites. In addition, customers complained that when they joined these sites (thinking they were Flava Works sites - with the click through via Adam4Adam.com) these third party websites would slam their credit cards for additional charges for items like Viagra and other websites. Although this complaint only addresses the Adam4Adam.com infringements, a complaint against these other websites is forthcoming.[/QUOTE]
Ah yes… BoyFriend Bucks. Those have been involved in similar things before from what I remember.
Re: Flava Works sues adam4adam.com for trademark, copyright infringement
In my mind there are a few questionsâ¦
Did Boyfriend Bucks (or some other sponsor) provide the images to A4A and thereby claim that the images belonged to Boyfriend Bucks, not FlavaWorks, or did A4A make the banners themselves? If they made the banners themselves did they make them from images provided by Boyfriend Bucks?
The images that were in profiles â was it a profile for one of the models in the picture, or was it just some random guy using “fake” images of himself?
Did A4A act on the DMCA to take down the problem images that were found in profiles? If they did, isn’t whack-a-mole the legal standard (like it is for tube sites)? At what point is the tube/hookup site required to remove the user from their site? (How many strikes does the user get?)
Exactly how many warnings were given to A4A and over what period of time?
Re: Flava Works sues adam4adam.com for trademark, copyright infringement
I agree with rawTOP, I think much of this is going to rely on what defense A4A has for not acting on the takedown requests.
Regardless of whether the images were supplied by someone else, or added to profiles by users, they were made aware of the problem by the copyright holder and they chose to ignore it. I think the case is going to focus on that single aspect; they were made aware of it, and they actively chose to continue to break copyright law. Unless A4A can come up with some remarkable excuse for not removing the offending content, they’ve already lost this.
A4A had plenty of warning, they knew what they were doing was in breach of copyright, and they carried on anyway. I could understand it if A4A were in the dark about all of this, but Flava attempted to resolve this through the usual means and A4A completely ignored reasonable requests.
I think Flava needs to look into how A4A and these offending thieving networks are connected.
Re: Flava Works sues adam4adam.com for trademark, copyright infringement
To be clear, I have no opinion on the lawsuit until I know more about it. (Hence my questions). So I’m not quite sure what you’re agreeing with other than that there are questions that need to be answered before an opinion can be formed.
Re: Flava Works sues adam4adam.com for trademark, copyright infringement
I agree that there are questions to be asked, but I believe this will be predominantly about why A4A didn’t act on the requests. This seemed to be the theme of your questions.
Actually, I’ve changed my mind, I don’t agree with you at all and will never express such a thing again even if I do agree with something you’ve added.
Re: Flava Works sues adam4adam.com for trademark, copyright infringement
[QUOTE=rawTOP;154300]In my mind there are a few questionsâ¦
Did Boyfriend Bucks (or some other sponsor) provide the images to A4A and thereby claim that the images belonged to Boyfriend Bucks, not FlavaWorks, or did A4A make the banners themselves? If they made the banners themselves did they make them from images provided by Boyfriend Bucks?
The images that were in profiles â was it a profile for one of the models in the picture, or was it just some random guy using “fake” images of himself?
Did A4A act on the DMCA to take down the problem images that were found in profiles? If they did, isn’t whack-a-mole the legal standard (like it is for tube sites)? At what point is the tube/hookup site required to remove the user from their site? (How many strikes does the user get?)
Exactly how many warnings were given to A4A and over what period of time?[/QUOTE]
Adam4Adam.com made all the banners they promoted themselves (so they claimed in emails). Adam4Adam.com was put on notice multiple times that dozens of images were copyrighted (and words they were using, like Flava, and Thugboy were trademarked or confusingly similar to our trademark), despite these notices, they continued to use them. This was not over a short time, but this has been going on since 2010 with the most recent copyright infringements occurring earlier this year in 2014. We have given them ample time and notice to resolve this outside the courts.
We were even close to a non-cash settlement last year until they wanted to add in the agreement future infringement non-liabilty clause (which if any infringements occurred on their site in the future, they would not be held liable). Of course we would not agree (who the hell would agree to future acts? Idiots would!) and talks broke down. So our only recourse (since they continued to infringe even after the settlement talks) was to sue them.
They either think we would not sue them, or thought because they are in Canada that they could not be touched, regardless, now they know know our intention is to litigate this all the way until trial.
Re: Flava Works sues adam4adam.com for trademark, copyright infringement
A4A has always responded to our takedown requests immediately, and the extent of their infringement was the use of images in banner ads. Wrong, yes, but there is much worse high crime on the high seas to be chasing, IMHO.
Re: Flava Works sues adam4adam.com for trademark, copyright infringement
:nono: :withstupid:
While I believe it happened, it is rather incredible to me that they would use one sponsor’s stuff (images and brand keywords) to promote a competing sponsor. And insisting on the right to do it in the future takes balls. I mean that’s on a whole other level than “give me access to your members area so I can generate my own promo materials” - that I get completely (though it takes trust). But using stuff from a competing sponsor? That’s just stupid â especially making a habit of it.
I would say “good luck”, but I hate lawsuits. I’m in the middle of two of them right now (down from three). They’re no fun â but they’re necessary at times.
Are there other hookup sites that are doing things that would necessitate take down notices? Other than the random fake profile pic, I can’t see this being a problem for hookup sites very often. You gotta work to make it the level of problem that necessitates a lawsuit!
Re: Flava Works sues adam4adam.com for trademark, copyright infringement
I do use Adam4Adam, and in the past I have noticed Flava Works guys in the banners.
In fact, allow me to speculate on what might have happened:
He photoshopped his own custom banners using Flava Works model images and used them to send traffic to A4A’s custom AEBN theater. I haven’t clicked on A4A’s banners in awhile, but last time I checked, they were promoting AEBN heavily. And after all — Flava Works is one of the companies whose products are for sale in AEBN’s library.
Isn’t “gay black porn” all the same?
Flava Works probably wasn’t happy seeing their images leading to make royalty sales for other companies. What more interesting is that A4A ignored Flava Works’s requests to take the images down. It’s one thing to make a mistake and ask forgiveness. It’s something else to ignore other people and just continue exploiting them. (Hello, Macho Moe!)
