CHICAGO — Flava Works has filed a $450,000 lawsuit against the operator of BreedItRaw.net, alleging that the competing gay adult membership site poached and published copyrighted photos of three contract stars.
In the suit recently filed at Chicago federal court, Flava Works said that BreedItRaw’s operator received financial benefits directly attributable to the infringements, including increased traffic to the website, increased advertising revenues and increased membership revenue.
In addition, Flava Works said that BreedItRaw’s operator had “actual red flag knowledge” of the alleged infringements and that they were repeat offenders.
“This is, in fact, the third lawsuit plaintiff has brought against defendants — each originating from defendants unlawful misappropriation of plaintiff’s copyrighted material,” Flava Works’ lawsuit said. “Defendants are recidivist content thieves with little regard for the rule of law and plaintiff’s proprietary rights.
Flava Works noted in the lawsuit that the studio typically engages models featured in its content on an exclusive basis.
“That is, the terms of each model’s contract with plaintiff provides that the model may not subsequently perform for any other company,” Flava Works said. “The exclusivity of each model’s agreement with plaintiff is widely known within the industry and to defendants.”
Pictures of the adult stars seen on webpages included in Exhibit A of the suit are identified as Arquez, Day Day and Kemancheo.
In addition to infringement allegations, Flava Works in the suit also claims at least one count of tortious interference with contract involving Flava Works model Giovanni Cruz.
Flava Works said that BreedItRaw’s operator was aware of the exclusivity of Cruz and caused him and others to breach their current contracts.
The Chicago-based studio is seeking unspecified damages for the tortious interference with contract count in addition to three counts of infringement that are potentially worth $450,000 in damages.
Corey Wright, the purported operator of BreedItRaw, did not immediately respond to an XBIZ email seeking comment about the suit.
Upon request for comment, Flava Works owner Phillip Bleicher told XBIZ that BreedItRaw was "using Flava Works' copyrighted works to sell their inferior products.”
“We would never know they were stealing from us until they recruited two of our models under contract prompting us to view their crappy website," he said.