Cobra Video Files Suit Against 'Underage' Porn Star'

CHATSWORTH, Calif. - Claiming trademark infringement, breach of contract, violation of California statutes, and other injustices, Cobra Video LLC, through counsel Jeffrey Douglas, filed a federal lawsuit in San Diego, Calif., on February 7 against Sean Lockhart and others, seeking unspecified damages and injunctive relief.

Lockhart is the performer who appeared as Brent Corrigan in four Cobra Video titles while underage.

In a Feb. 13 press release announcing this latest lawsuit, Cobra Video stated, "Cobra Video alleges that Lockhart who had used Cobra’s trade name 'Brent Corrigan' had misappropriated said name to compete in bad faith against Cobra Video. Defendant Lockhart had also alleged he used forged documents in order to work for Cobra Video in four productions which had been immediately removed from the market pending his actions."

Lockhart, through his attorney Chad Belville, says that the ID he presented to Cobra owner/director Bryan Kocis was forged and that he was 17 at the time the four videos were shot. Lockhart told GAYVN that he had performed in several additional videos for Cobra after he turned 18, but that Cobra does not have valid ID's for those movies.

Cobra's previous attempt to secure valid ID from Lockhart was a writ filed on October 27, 2005, in the Common Court of Pleas in Luzerne County, Penn., requiring Lockhart to appear on December 6, 2005, for a deposition and to bring a certified copy of his birth certificate with him.

Lockhart did not appear. On December 21, Belville told GAYVN, "Contrary to their claims, there is no actual lawsuit filed in Luzerne County, Penn. That state allows someone to get a case name and number without filing any claim, which is what Cobra has done, but issued a press release heralding their filing of a 'lawsuit' when in reality no claim has been filed.

"Cobra delivered a powerless piece of paper demanding that Brent fly across the country so that they could ask him questions, a procedure that is commonly done by telephone," Belville said. "Brent did not show up to the scheduled deposition because he was under no legal obligation to do so. Cobra has not even stated a claim other than silly demands for hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenues due to Corrigan telling the truth about his age. We believe they are just on a fishing expedition to get a copy of his real ID so they can release the latest videos."

In its press release announcing the federal lawsuit, Cobra states, "This asserts Cobra’s zero tolerance policy for infringements of their business rights as well as those who would allege fraud and violate business practices. Cobra will pursue any and all who violate their rights, and engage in unfair business competition through all available legal means."

When contacted by GAYVN on February 22 for a response to Cobra's filing of a federal lawsuit against his client, Belville said, "Among other things, Cobra is suing a model for sending Cobra a PhotoShopped ID. The biggest problem with Cobra's case is that Cobra never inspected the actual ID, completely in violation of 2257. So, in order to prove their civil case they have to give factual evidence of a felony committed by themselves.

"I believe Bryan Kocis is doing this to keep the other models that he may have photographed underage from coming forward. Already, four boys have come to me claiming to have worked for Cobra underage, none willing to come out publicly due to fear of repercussions from Cobra. Once they either get the courage to come forward or are forced to come out under subpeona that this case conveniently gives me, we may expose more Cobra titles that are child porn," Belville said.

In response to Belville's assertions, Cobra's attorney Jeffrey Douglas said, "It is remarkably easy to throw baseless accusations around, especially regarding child pornography. If there are truly underage performers, Chad Belville has an ethical obligation as a lawyer to tell the industry who they are and to provide proof.

"Concealing such information, if it in fact exists, is a disservice to everyone in the industry. His failure to provide proof is consistent with his failure to provide proof that Sean Lockhart was underage.

"The only facts that are proven are these: Lockhart cybersquatted, broke his contract with Cobra, and used trademarked materials belonging to Cobra. Since last September, Mr. Belville has claimed Sean Lockhart was underage when he made four movies. If this is true, why has he failed to provide a certified copy of Lockhart's birth certificate? If there is a reason not to provide it to Cobra, why not provide it to the FBI or AVN?

"One way or another, Sean Lockhart appears to have committed serious crimes. Either he feloniously obtained a Washington State driver's license or he committed fraud on Cobra and all retailers of Cobra's products in order to break a binding contract.

"His answer to our Federal lawsuit is due next week. We look forward to that litigation," Douglas concluded.

http://www.gayvn.com/index.php?Prima...tent_ID=260230

Interesting turn of events for sure :)

Regards,

Lee

Yes, very interesting. Out of curiosity, I'd like to know who the "and others" are. This could get very juicy.

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Originally Posted by Lee

filed a federal lawsuit in San Diego, Calif., on February 7 against Sean Lockhart and others,

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The plot thickens indeed.

Jeffrey Douglas is obviously quite well known in the industry, and Chad is certainly well known to many in the industry as well. Cobra's prior attorney was a small-town guy specializing in drunk drivers and personal injury. So with counsel on both sides with strong background in the actual issues, it will be very interesting to see how this case develops.

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Originally Posted by Lee

"I believe Bryan Kocis is doing this to keep the other models that he may have photographed underage from coming forward. Already, four boys have come to me claiming to have worked for Cobra underage, none willing to come out publicly due to fear of repercussions from Cobra. Once they either get the courage to come forward or are forced to come out under subpeona that this case conveniently gives me, we may expose more Cobra titles that are child porn," Belville said.

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OK, is is just me, or does all this make it sound like these kids were wronged when, in fact, if this is true, then these kids swindled a porn producer into letting them appear in dirty movies?

If Cobra is knowingly filming movies with underage models, they deserve what is coming to them for sure, but it needs to be said that these kids are not exempt from blame. The whole "underage" thing doesn't fly with me at all. If you're 17, and just a few months away from turning 18, you definitely know right from wrong, and to insinuate that these kids were "taken advantage of" or that Cobra is filming "child porn" (something, in my eyes at least, that involves actual CHILDREN, not nearly-of-age horny teenagers who obviously figured out a way to manipulate their way into a porn video) is, well, to me, a bit ludicrous.

Admittedly, I do not know all the facts. Cobra could be a bunch of assholes and I'm sure that a lot was left out in this story, but I get a little antsy when I hear people go all "save the children" in situations like this one. In fact, in the previous four cases in which underage models were discovered to have been employed by the industry, all four of those models were found to have swindled the porn producers by falsifying documents and lying about their age. If anyone needs to be protected, it's the industry from these little trouble-makers. Speaking as a former teenager who was a bit of a hellion himself, I feel pretty safe in saying that our "innocent" little Brent Corrigan is probably not so innocent after all.

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Originally Posted by XXXWriterDude

OK, is is just me, or does all this make it sound like these kids were wronged when, in fact, if this is true, then these kids swindled a porn producer into letting them appear in dirty movies?

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No, you are not the only one.

I believe, too many people seem to think that just because a person is under the legal age (18 or 21yo), they are 'innocent', or incapable of making up their own mind/decision. Another example is the web cam boy (his name has slipped my mind) that appeared on Oprah - there is nothing innocent about that devious person.

I do not know about all of you, but when I was 14yo I knew how to get what I wanted and what I could get away with.

My honest opinion, these guys are just trying to cash-in, as was/is the guy on Oprah. Their youth is now lost and they realize they cannot make as much as they did ... OR (and as with many people in this world), they did something the now do not like and they want someone else to pay for their naughty deeds.

Again, that is MY honest opinion.

IF we make the assumption that Brent's claim is true and that he was, in fact, underage when the videos were made, there are two issues.

If he provided fake ID to Cobra, than undeniably, Brent committed an act of fraud and forgery, and there's no defense I can think of to that.

However, I think there's also an issue of due diligence on the part of the producer. If, as is alleged, Cobra made the decision to work with Brent on the basis of an emailed jpg of a drivers license, and did not ask to examine the physical drivers license, then Cobra is not only in violation of 2257 (which requires the producer to physically examine the identification documents) but in my opinion incredibly irresponsible.

We work with a lot of models who have recently turned 18, and slightly older models who look as though they very recently turned 18. ANY producer who works with 18 year olds could have a conniving kid present a fake ID, and if the fake were good enough, the producer could probably be duped. But I think that any producer working with younger models needs to take the responsibility to perform extra due diligence to satisfy him or herself that they're being presented with genuine ID and there's no reason for suspicion. If there's any reason to suspect otherwise, the only safe choice is to decline to work with the model. It's as simple as that. It isn't worth risking jail time (not to mention the potential revenue loss) over ANY model.

In Cobra's case, if what Brent alleges is correct, there were several opportunities, at different shoots, where Cobra asked for physical identification, and Brent did not provide physical identification to Cobra for examination. If I were Cobra, and my model were not able to provide the identification when I asked for it, everything would come to a grinding halt right then and there.

I agree that there are a lot of horny 16 or 17 year olds who know how to manipulate people (think Justin Berry, the kid written up in NY Times.) But producers of adult content, particularly adult content with 18 year old models, ought to recognize that this can happen, and take every reasonable precaution to ensure that they are being given authentic documents which they should physically examine and, preferably, verify by whatever other means possible.

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Originally Posted by boyfunk

Justin Berry, the kid written up in NY Times.

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Yah, that clown.

Thanks.

Chad Belville is a great attorney and I believe there is a lot to this story that's yet to unfold or Chad wouldn't have taken the case. He's put a lot of time and effort into the adult industry and he's obviously not going after the "big money" in fighting for models.

Everyone involved is innocent until proven guilty. All this mud slinging isn't necessary.

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Originally Posted by Boyfunk

"If I were Cobra, and my model were not able to provide the identification when I asked for it, everything would come to a grinding halt right then and there. "

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EXACTLY. A good lesson to everyone to keep all paperwork in order and personally verify ID's, or make sure producers you buy from personally verify the ID's.

This is all such a shame but part of being in this business.

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Originally Posted by boyfunk

I agree that there are a lot of horny 16 or 17 year olds who know how to manipulate people (think Justin Berry, the kid written up in NY Times.) But producers of adult content, particularly adult content with 18 year old models, ought to recognize that this can happen, and take every reasonable precaution to ensure that they are being given authentic documents which they should physically examine and, preferably, verify by whatever other means possible.

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Definitely agree with you on this. No question. I'm just saying, it seems so much of the blame is placed on the producers when, in fact, there are always two sides to every coin.

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Everyone involved is innocent until proven guilty. All this mud slinging isn't necessary.

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Squirt, who's slinging mud? All I see are some people sharing thoughts and opinions on an adult forum about a pretty important issue. Seems perfectly suitable to me.

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Originally Posted by XXXWriterDude

Squirt, who's slinging mud? All I see are some people sharing thoughts and opinions on an adult forum about a pretty important issue. Seems perfectly suitable to me.

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Whoooa down boy! I was talking about the two parties involved in the case not any of us. :high:

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Originally Posted by Squirt

Whoooa down boy! I was talking about the two parties involved in the case not any of us. :high:

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Haha. OK. Dazz cool. Thought you were commenting on our comments. :)

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Originally Posted by boyfunk

If I were Cobra, and my model were not able to provide the identification when I asked for it, everything would come to a grinding halt right then and there.

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Early stories from Brent's side had his friend obtaining the ID's for him to use. Now all of the sudden there were no physical ID's? Strange. They may have been talking about altered scans in the first place, but I have my doubts.

Remember, this latest claim shifts some of the blame off Brent and onto Cobra. Whereas previously Brent was 100% to blame.

Brent is still talking about going on TV with his story. He is supposedly in talks with multiple outlets. It's difficult to garner sympathy if Cobra did everything by the book though. So real or not, this latest claim injects a certain element that allows Brent to be the partial victim for the first time.

If the FBI were involved they could take both side's scanners and find out where the 2257 ID actually came from, and also if it was digitally altered. But I guess they have better things to do than find out if a career pornstar got started a year early.

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Originally Posted by Matt 26z

Early stories from Brent's side had his friend obtaining the ID's for him to use. Now all of the sudden there were no physical ID's? Strange. They may have been talking about altered scans in the first place, but I have my doubts.

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If the FBI were involved they could take both side's scanners and find out where the 2257 ID actually came from, and also if it was digitally altered. But I guess they have better things to do than find out if a career pornstar got started a year early.

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Depending on how ugly the case gets, I could see one or the other side hiring experts to do the same thing. That would be interesting.

A lot of this sounds oddly reminiscent of the first time Kocis got in trouble with the law for similar things.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?n...d=455154&rfi=8

That story is a from a few years ago, when he pled guilty to videotaping a 15 year old.

From the article:

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He further argued that Kocis had a registered and legitimate business and that he properly obtained written contracts from all of the "models" he employed.
However, Kocis had not obtained a written contract and proof of identification for the teen before the police investigation began.

"My client believed he could disseminate (the tapes) after he got the contract and identification. He didn't realize under state law the mere video taping could constitute a crime," Flora said.

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It's pretty remarkable that he felt he could film with intent to distribute a teenager and then think he only had to check ID when it came time to put up the video for sale.

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.

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. To me it sounds goofy. Because the credits of the movies do not read "Starring Sean Lockhart as Brent Corrigan." They clearly say "Starring Brent Corrigan"

Now when Joan Crawford lost her contract at MGM Studios, was she supposed to go and star in Mildred Pierce as Lucille Fay LeSueur?

Steve

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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: