Looks like the P2P settlement industry is starting off the new year with a bang. By our scanning of the Justia Federal court dockets database, over 13,000 people could be dragged into "Doe" lawsuits based on complaints filed since December 20, and almost all of them are for porn. Here are some of the cases we're seeing.

Hot teachers

The Adult Source Media company has hired an attorney in Denton, Texas to sue 247 "Does" for copyright infringement associated with a P2P sharing of the film Hot for Teachers. The venue is the US District Court of the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division.

"Defendants' infringements allow them and others to unlawfully obtain and distribute unauthorized copies of Plaintiff's work for which Plaintiff spent a substantial amount of time, money and effort to produce, market and distribute," the complaint charges. "Plaintiff now seeks redress for this rampant infringement of its exclusive rights in the motion picture."

Adult Source wants to sue these Does for damages and lawyers fees. The complaint concedes that the company doesn't actually know who the people are behind these BitTorrent downloads. Nonetheless:

"Plaintiff believes that information obtained in discovery will lead to the identification of each Defendant's true name and permit the Plaintiff to amend this Complaint to state the same," the filing notes. "Plaintiff further believes that the information obtained in discovery may lead to the identification of additional infringing parties to be added to this Complaint as defendants, since monitoring of online infringement of Plaintiff's motion picture is ongoing."

Harmony Films has employed the same law firm to sue 739 Does for allegedly illegally sharing or downloading its film Young Harlots Foreign Exchange. Ditto for D & E Media, acting against 258 Does who supposedly shared The Sexxxtons.

Damaged booty

Meanwhile the Evasive Angles production company has employed the services of a Beverly Hills, California lawyer to sue 1,149 Does for infringement of the motion picture Black Big Booty Queens. The venue in this case is the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

"Plaintiff has suffered both money damages and irreparable harm as a result of each Defendant's infringement of Plaintiff's copyrights in the Motion Picture," the complaint insists. "In addition, discovery may disclose that one or more of the Defendants obtained profits as a result of such infringement."

Some of these lawsuits may have been served in haste. We noticed that another filing from the same attorney claims damages from the alleged downloading of Tampa Swingers Party by 2,010 Does. But the main Exhibit of the Complaint lists over 2,000 IP addresses for the sharing of Illegal Ass 2, produced by Third Degree Films. The rush to get these filings out may be generating some boilerplate document snafus.

But the bottom line is that the recent defeats that porn movie copyright trolls have been dealt in West Virginia don't seem be discouraging other contenders in this field. As we reported, in December a West Virginia Federal judge repeatedly rebuked the Adult Copyright Company's porn infringement suits, ruling that stuffing all these Does into single complaints won't fly.

"Several courts agree that where there is no allegation that multiple defendants have acted in concert, joinder is improper," Judge John Preston Bailey wrote in response to Adult Copyright's suit against over 7,000 Does who allegedly downloaded Batman XXX. "Accordingly, this Court finds that the defendants' alleged use of some of the same ISPs and P2P networks to commit copyright infringement is . . . insufficient for permissive joinder."

Heads will roll

This forces the firm to sue all these Does individually at $350 a pop. But the setback hasn't floored Adult Copyright's most famous client, Batman XXX movie maker Axel Braun.

"Heads will roll," Braun promised the XBiz adult industry site in response to the verdict. "I said it once, and I'll say it again, F**k 'em all. I didn't get into this fight thinking it was going to be an easy one, but I can assure you that I am not quitting."

And the West Virginia decisions haven't dissuaded these new attorneys either. Their filings insist that the very nature of P2P sharing is an act of joinder.

"Each Defendant has acted in cooperation with the other Defendants by agreeing to provide, and actually providing, on a P2P network an infringing reproduction of at least substantial portions of Plaintiff's copyrighted Motion Picture," one complaint contends, "in anticipation of the other Defendants doing likewise with respect to that work and/or other works."

It's up to judges in Northern Texas and Northern California to tackle these issues now. One thing is for sure—they're going to be reading a lot of porn movie titles. The only non-porn-related Doe filing we could find involved a German based distributor suing an unknown number of Does for allegedly downloading the Polish TV comedy Ciacho.

The complaint was filed in the US District Court for New Jersey. "On information and belief, personal jurisdiction in this District is proper because each Defendant, without consent or permission of the copyright owner, illegally disseminated the motion picture 'Caicho' [sic] in every jurisdiction in the United States, including this one," the suit claims.