SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge on Monday denied a request by operators of now-defunct file-locker site Oron.com to free up more funds.
Oron has been under a preliminary injunction freezing its assets shortly after DataTech Enterprises, Falcon and Raging Stallion's parent, sued the file-locker site for unspecified damages in August after it found at least 400 titles on the site that were involved in more than 40,000 separate acts of infringement.
Ruling on a motion in a case filed by the parent company of gay adult studios Falcon and Raging Stallion, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said that the court has already released $125,000 to pay for Oron's defense litigation expenses in the DataTech case and that it wouldn't OK an additional $300,000 to pay off lawyers.
Breyer, in his ruling Monday, said that Oron didn't provide any details for the $300,000 request — "only a bottom-line number and vague references to the kinds of litigation activities undertaken and anticipated."
Breyer also ruled in another motion that he wouldn't sanction Oron attorneys over a "unmeritorious motion for reconsideration of a ruling,"
Attorney Gill Sperlein, who represents DataTech, earlier asked Breyer to levy sanctions against Oron's counsel for introducing "rehashed arguments already rejected by the court" and for engaging in a strategy of depleting funds available for "satisfying the inevitable judgment against it" by spending those funds on attorneys fees.
Oron had contended that the preliminary injunction that DataTech won in August wasn't based on all of the facts in the copyright infringement suit and that a preliminary injunction shouldn't have taken place.
The DataTech suit comes on the heels of Corbin Fisher's legal battle over similar infringement charges against Oron.
After a $550,000 settlement was recently reached between Corbin Fisher and Oron, the file locker's attorneys appealed unsuccessfully to the 9th Circuit.
But Oron attorneys have made more appeals over numerous aspects of the case and the 9th Circuit scheduled motions and hearings all the way through January.
Another gay adult studio, Flava Works, also has filed copyright infringement claims against Oron.