Possible Copyright Violator

[hdkbill]

It has come to our attention this evening that a website in Australia, http://www.hunkdvd.com is selling our dvd's and those of many company's for only $19.95.

We have no clue who those guys are but know that our authorized distributor in Australia doesn't sell to them and since we don't have a wholesale price that low they are most likely illegally replicating and selling.

As a member of AICO (Adult Industry Copyright Organisation) in Australia, we have turned this matter over to them.

Any of you who produce dvd's should go there and check and see if any of yours are being sold there. They have many studios listed.

Also, it appears that they belong to many affiliate programs of members here, so you might want to check out their website to see if they are one of your affiliates so as to make sure that you are not associating with a less than honest organization.

Bill

[pierrefitch]

I just falcon my movie was on there they are sending him a letter from there attorney people have nothing better to do then stealing other people hard work fucking asshole ...

[hdkbill]

I just falcon my movie was on there they are sending him a letter from there attorney people have nothing better to do then stealing other people hard work fucking asshole ...

Pierre,

Yeah, those that copy and sell other folks films are nothing but regular, ordinary thieves.

If their touchable and have assets, we always pursue them. If they are out of the country, we belong to associations like AICO who will pursue them relentlessly.

Glad you let Falcon know. Seems like most of the major studios are on there. Guess they didn't want to steal the content from the lesser know studios. I also contacted many of the studios that are listed there....so, I'm sure, before too long they will be gone.

Bill

[tombarr]

Well they don't seem to specify it, but is there any chance he is selling second hand DVD's?

If they are copies they have certainly taken a lot of trouble to make the site appear legitimate...2257 notices, shipping restrictions, return policies, etc. Unlike many websites I have seen pirating though they do have a contact form on the site.

I think best of all, if this does prove to be a copyright violator, I like the copyright notices they have posted on the site.

[pierrefitch]

i hope they are not from some weird country like rusia or nigirea because could be hard to go after them ..

[hdkbill]

Tom,

It's always hard to tell. But, when it's not possible to determine by a "whois" lookup who they are or to find any contact info...other than the contact form they use which doesn't give you an email address. And, when they are selling everything for $19.95 and then charging only $6.95 for shipping anywhere in the world. And lastly, one would assume that if they are selling used dvd's they would state that fact, state the quantities they have and, of course, if they don't, I would suspect that they would have many very unhappy customers. When you add it all up.....ya just have to assume they are pirating them.

In our experience I'd say that 99.9% of the sites we see like this are in fact pirating the dvd's. They generally don't last too long and we find them fairly quickly. Odds are, we'll know who they are by tomorrow and we'll know very shortly after that if they are pirating. And, if they are, their site will be gone very shortly.

Bill

[Lee]

Do they have any Titan releases on there?

Im pretty sure Keith would be interested to know if they do

Regards,

Lee

[hdkbill]

i hope they are not from some weird country like rusia or nigirea because could be hard to go after them ..

They are, according to their site, located in Austrailia. If so, very easy to go after.

Russia's a bitch but we did have a guy in Denmark who thought he was safe. After spending several thousands of dollars in attorney fees he found out he wasn't and we had his site shut down and ended up with his domain name.

Bill

[hdkbill]

Do they have any Titan releases on there?

Im pretty sure Keith would be interested to know if they do

Regards,

Lee

Lee,

Yep, they have 8 Titan Films on the site:
http://www.hunkdvd.com/store/index.p...&keyword=Titan

Titan is not one of the studios that we notified. I'm sure that someone on the board here will let Keith know.

Bill

[pierrefitch]

Lee Titan is on there

[nickbaer]

They haven't found my DVDs... I'm not on their list of studios.

I'm safe with VOD.

[hdkbill]

I think best of all, if this does prove to be a copyright violator, I like the copyright notices they have posted on the site.

Yeah, don't you just love that. I also like their statement under terms of use that we aren't "using the website to collect information or material to be used against the operators of this website" Hmmm...wonder what that means. Kinda makes one wonder what they think someone might be looking for.

Oh well....guess we'll see.

Take care Tom...

[gaybucks_chip]

I just discussed this with AJ, who handles most of our DVD-related stuff.

This place does have about a half dozen of our titles,and like HDK, our wholesale price is higher than what they are retailing the product for.

However... all of the titles they have are our older titles, and AJ thinks they may just be clearing them out. I'm not so sure, since it seems that EVERY title they have is $19.95, and they say right in their order info that they don't ship in clamshells, that they send the slipsheet and disc, but no case. So it sounds shady.

We're going to check with our distributor tomorrow and find out if he's selling to them or not.

There's other stuff that seems shady about these people... the place seems very willing to sell to US customers, and the payments are all handled through an off-brand payment processor, Paymate, apparently an Australian equivalent to Paypal, and payments are made to the account of "lemongrassmedia@gmail.com"

In checking, hunkdvd.com carefully obscured their domain WHOIS info, but the guy wasn't so careful with lemongrassmedia:


E Sugrue zedmedia00-lgspam@yahoo.com.au
E Sugrue
PO Box 3750
Robina TC, Qld 4230
AU
+61.755202000

And $6.95 seems awfully cheap for international airmail from Australia to the US; I know that we can't send TO australia for that price.

so perhaps this will be enough to provide info to both the sponsors whose program he's advertising (corbinfisher.com, fratmen.tv, seancody.com, plus a bunch of others) and to those of us whose product he's selling to find some more information.

[DEVELISH]

http://www.hunkdvd.com/store/index.p...products_id=93

isn't this the cobra video guy who was under 18?

[DEVELISH]

http://www.hunkdvd.com/store/index.p...products_id=93

isn't this the cobra video guy who was under 18?

I hate quoting myself - but I am not all awake now and my brain barely functions..

I meant... QP in Queensland... officials... helping search for the copiright breacher...