Source: Perfect 10, Inc.

Perfect 10 Announces: Ninth Circuit Upends Copyright Law By Immunizing Automated Piracy

LOS ANGELES, May 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Ninth Circuit refused to rehear or correct its decision in the case of Perfect 10, Inc. v. Giganews, Inc., et al., despite receiving Amicus briefs from both the Motion Picture Association of America (“MPAA”) and Recording Industry of America (“RIAA”) warning of substantial damage to this country’s movie and recording studios as a result of its ruling.  

“Unfortunately, the Ninth Circuit effectively immunized those who illegally copy, distribute, and sell access to pirated movies, songs, images, software, magazines, and other copyrighted works, as long as they use a computer to automate that process,” said Dr. Norman Zada, president of Perfect 10, Inc., the plaintiff in the case.  “Perfect 10 presented evidence that defendants were copying and selling access to 61,000 unlicensed Perfect 10 copyrighted images, along with roughly 25,000 trillion bytes of other unlicensed copyrighted works, including films such as Fast and Furious, Dark Knight, Harry Potter, Mad Max Fury Road, Suicide Squad, Get Hard, Central Intelligence; TV series such as True Blood, Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Law and Order, CSI Miami; NFL, WWE, and UFC events, and an endless number of songs, including those recorded by Taylor Swift, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Adele, Lady Gaga, Santana, Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, and Billy Joel, and publications such as Esquire, Playboy, and the Wall Street Journal. 

"The Ninth Circuit’s decision allows defendants to continue to copy and sell access to our works as well as intellectual property belonging to others without permission or payment.  In addition, it affirmed the lower court’s ruling that our lawsuit was ‘objectively unreasonable,’ and awarded defendants $5.63 million in attorney’s fees, which bankrupted our company.  The ruling is very bad news for this nation’s creative industries, who need to be paid for the use of their works.  Prior to this case, no court had ever allowed a defendant to make untold millions by selling access to content they did not own,” said Zada.

Perfect 10, which started in 1996, featured tasteful images of naturally beautiful models.   It was one of only three adult magazines allowed to be sold to the United States armed forces.  Models featured in Perfect 10’s magazine or on its website, perfect10.com, include Marisa Miller, a Victoria's Secret and Sports Illustrated cover model; Sophia Rudieva, Miss Russia 2009; Hungarian actress Zita Gorog, who appeared in the film ‘The Underworld’; French actress and Madison Model of the year, Isabelle Funaro; and Evelina Papantoniou, runner up in the 2001 Miss Universe pageant.  Hollywood studios have requested permission to use Perfect 10’s magazine or some of its content in many of their films and TV shows, including American Pie, Spiderman I and II, Men in Black II, The Forty-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, The Way of the Gun, Hollow Man, Superbad, Death Race, Sopranos, Dawson’s Creek, and the Howard Stern show.

Dr. Zada is the son of Lotfi Zadeh, the creator of fuzzy logic.  Zada wrote the book Winning Poker Systems, published by Prentice Hall in 1974.  Zada taught as a professor at Stanford, Columbia, UCLA, and U.C. Irvine.  In the mid 1980’s he ran various financial competitions, including the U.S. Investing Championship, and “Money Manager Verified Ratings,” which was covered in Barron’s on a quarterly basis for several years.   In 2009, Joan Rivers proclaimed Dr. Zada her ‘boy toy.’  Dr. Zada is also known for his simple explanation as to why the United States budget cannot be balanced over an extended period of time.

“Our only hope left is a request for review by the Supreme Court, which unfortunately rarely grants such requests,” added Zada. 

For more information, contact Dr. Norman Zada at 310-476-0700, or email him at normanz@earthlink.net or normanz@perfect10.com