The parent company of Pornhub, which owns popular brands such as \u201cReality Kings\u201d, \u201cBrazzers\u201d, \u201cMOFOS\u201d, has already won several lawsuits against high profile targets such as\u00a0Daftsex<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Goodporn<\/a>.<\/p>\n Early last year, Aylo filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington against a collection of pirate adult websites, including \u2018Freshporno,\u2019 \u2018Kojka\u2019, \u2018PornHeal\u2019. These eight sites were allegedly operated by someone named Anton Popravkin.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To stop the infringing activity, Aylo\u2019s copyright enforcement arm sent more than 10,000 DMCA takedown notices to the piracy ring. However. These notices failed to get the infringing videos removed, so Aylo decided to take the matter to court.<\/p>\n Aylo accused the piracy network, which reportedly received more than three million monthly visits, of publicly displaying many thousands of works without permission. This was done with a profit motive, making the operator liable for willful copyright infringement.<\/p>\n \u201cPopravkin Anton willfully infringed Plaintiff\u2019s Works at least 9,006 times: Plaintiff identified 9,006 of its copyrighted registered works being displayed across 27,105 infringing URLs on the Websites,\u201d the complaint read.<\/p>\n \u201cThe sheer volume of infringements demonstrates Popravkin Anton\u2019s deliberate and willful disregard for copyright law, as well as his ongoing operation of a business that operates by monetizing copyright infringement.\u201d<\/p>\n The operator of the site never responded to the lawsuit, which left Aylo no other option than to request a default judgment. While Aylo could theoretically request $150,000 per work, for a total of more than a billion dollars in damages, it settled for a tenth of that.<\/p>\n In its motion for a default judgment, Aylo requested $15,000 in statutory damages per work infringed. With 9,006 works, this brings the total to $135,090,000 in statutory damages.<\/p>\n Last Friday, U.S. District Judge Kymberly K. Evanson granted Aylo\u2019s motion for default judgment. However, instead of awarding $15,000 per work, she reduced it to $10,000 per infringed work. In addition, Aylo was granted attorney\u2019s fees and costs of $20,350.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the order, Judge Evanson notes that Aylo hasn\u2019t shared any persuasive evidence to justify its $15,000 claim. In addition, the court deems $10,000 per work sufficient to send a deterrent message to other prospective pirates.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause Plaintiff has not presented persuasive evidence to support its $15,000 valuation of each infringed work, the Court declines to assume that the full amount requested is appropriate,\u201d the order reads.<\/p>\n \u201cThe amount awarded will nonetheless discourage wrongful conduct and uphold the integrity of copyright laws,\u201d Judge Evanson adds.<\/p>\n While a $90 million damages award sounds good, it is unlikely that Aylo will recoup this, as the main defendant was not located. And since Anton Popravkin likely doesn\u2019t reside in the United States, they will likely ignore the court order.<\/p>\n Therefore, the real value of the default judgment lies in the domain name transfers that were granted in response to the \u201cwillful\u201d and \u201cmalicious\u201d copyright infringement.<\/p>\n The court issued a broad permanent injunction ordering the U.S.-based domain name registry Verisign to change the registrar for the eight targeted domains to EuroDNS. EuroDNS is subsequently instructed to change the registrant for those domain names directly to Aylo Premium Ltd.<\/p>\n \u201cVerisign, Inc. shall change the registrar for the domain names 3prn.com, freshporno.net, frprn.com, homexvideo.com, kojka.com,mojva.com, onlineporno.cc, and pornheal.com to EuroDNS, and instruct EuroDNS to change the registrant for those domain names to Aylo Premium Ltd,\u201d the order reads.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n At the time of writing, all domains remain linked to the piracy ring, but it is expected that these will become unavailable later this week, when Aylo takes them over. Whether that will permanently keep the pirate sites offline remains to be seen.<\/p>\n \u2014<\/em><\/p>\n A copy of the order granting the default judgment, issued by U.S. District Judge Kymberly K. Evanson, is available\u00a0here (pdf)<\/a>. The order signed by the court clerk can be found\u00a0here (pdf)<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Source: \u00a0![\"complaint\"](\"https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/images\/complaint-anton.png.webp)
<\/picture><\/center> <\/p>\nAylo Requests Multi-Million Dollar Default<\/h2>\n
Court Awards $90,060,000 in Damages<\/h2>\n
![\"90m\"](\"https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/images\/90m-order.png.webp)
<\/picture><\/center> <\/p>\nDomain Name Seizures<\/h2>\n
<\/center> <\/p>\n![\"TorrentFreak\"](\"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/torrentfreak.png\")
<\/a> TorrentFreak.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"