Cobra Video Files Suit Against 'Underage' Porn Star'

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Originally Posted by BDBionic

Granted, that is an entirely different case but nonetheless, one would hope his judgement and understanding of the law has since improved were he to be given the benefit of the doubt this time around.

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Common sense tells us that after his public humiliation, prosecution, and subsequent guilty plea (of sexual abuse of children) that Bryan Kocis had a thorough knowledge of the law regarding filming of minors and checking ID's.

And in the subsequent 4 years since this incident our whole industry has been put on notice about checking ID's and 2257.

I have a hard time believing that "mistake of age" will be a working defense this time around. All Brent has to say is he never sent a photoshoped ID to Bryan Kocis (which he possibly didn't).

I have no sides in this case until more comes out. Things are getting very interesting indeed. This sucks for everyone involved. Litigation takes a lot of time and physical/emotional energy for all involved and can destroy lives before a verdict is ever reached.

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Originally Posted by boyfunk

If Cobra did everything by the book, they would have instructed their distributor to withdraw the product from the market

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That is a tough call unless you are in Cobra's position, and very few are. I'm talking about being the most popular American twink studio and doing a huge volume around the world.

Also consider that they release stuff only once every few months. Pulling the Brent videos on a whim means several months of work is now in limbo. The financial end of that decision alone would be unbelievable. This isn't like a rinky dink paysite removing a couple photosets or pulling a film that took 10 days to produce. They are big. Really, really big.

Trying to imagine myself at their status, I wouldn't pull material on their level based on potentially fraudulent and definitely unsubstantiated claims either. I would wait a reasonable period of time until some information, anything, could be obtained that refuted the 2257 docs on file.

To this day Brent has provided nothing, and he wants out of his contract to boot. I think Cobra made a sensible decision considering everything.

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Originally Posted by Matt 26z

Trying to imagine myself at their status, I wouldn't pull material on their level based on potentially fraudulent and definitely unsubstantiated claims either. I would wait a reasonable period of time until some information, anything, could be obtained that refuted the 2257 docs on file.

To this day Brent has provided nothing, and he wants out of his contract to boot. I think Cobra made a sensible decision considering everything.

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Wellllll... I suppose it comes down to how much risk one is willing to take.

Also... keep in mind that this has happened a number of times before, with other companies... the only difference is the other companies pulled the titles as soon as there was an indication of a problem. Maybe they're being overly conservative.

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Originally Posted by desslock

I think this is all about a producer wanting to control a particular model, hence all that emphasis about the unauthorized use of "Brent Corrigan" as a trade name.

This isn't about child porn or lies and betrayal.... its just about use of intellectual property, that being the trade name Brent Corrigan.

I've heard very little discussed about this... and I've really wondered what grounds adult movie producers have here.

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This is a very interesting aside on the case. I'm no attorney, but I have cast a layman's eye on the various classifications of trademarks that are eligible for registration, and there doesn't appear to be any class that relates specifically to a stage name of an *individual*. Music groups, yes. Websites, yes. Fictional characters, such as Ronald McDonald, yes. Trade names of companies, yes. But not, as far as I can tell, for names associated exclusively with a single living human being.

There are rights of personality and publicity which are somewhat similar to trademarks that protect, say, anyone from marketing "Michael Jackson brand lube" ... but near as I can tell, those rights attach to the individual represented by the name, be it a real or stage name.

I think it's going to be a really tough road to try and prevent a model from using the stage name he is directly associated with.

Smithers, release.... the attorneys....

http://www.labnet.com/oldthink/new2/burns.jpg

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Originally Posted by boyfunk

but I have cast a layman's eye on the various classifications of trademarks that are eligible for registration, and there doesn't appear to be any class that relates specifically to a stage name of an *individual*.

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I think that depends on your definition of what a stage name is. Is the name a part of a fictional porn character, or a true real life alias?

If a studio were to hire an unknown model for a porn that had a storyline and actual characters, does that model have the right to take his character's name from the movie everywhere else he works after that?

Just imagine if Harrison Ford wanted to drop his real name and have Han Solo in the credits for all of his movies. He can't do that.

So that brings us to plain sex porn videos. Even though it's nothing but sex scenes with no storyline, are such films still a fictional movie with fictional characters, or would you classify them as a type of sex documentary?

I view them as fiction and the models as characters. I think studios have every right in the world to retain ownership of porn character names that they have branded.

Now obviously this sort of thing is rarely going to come up since future work using that name gets past work exposure also. So this is all really kind of a moot point unless we are talking about trying to destroy a model or keep a competitor from gaining easy ground on a name you branded.

Interesting point.

Regarding Brent's specific situation, he has been associated with the "Brent" persona exclusively, and numerous fan sites, etc have popped up with pictures of him, some taken by Cobra, some not. I think the closest association might be for the guy who played Gilligan on Gilligan's Island, or the various people that have played James Bond in multiple movies. Even in those cases, everyone knew the actor had a different name from the character. In his videos, though, this one actor has always and only been referred to as Brent Corrigan, and so I think that a reasonable person would assume that to be a name that belonged only to the model, not a trademark that the model was "assuming."

But the other point this raises is about model names and changing names of the same model. So as to not hijack this thread, I'll start a separate topic on it, 'cause I'm interested in what people's opinions are.

i'm confused , didn't b*entcorrigan star in "cream bboys" just released by c*bramedia?

sincerely ~ ..."catch a falling pornstar put him in your pocket never let him fade away"... :goof: