via Matthew Skala (thanx Axel!):
SuicideGirls makes outrageous IP demands
2/21/07
I don't have as much detail on this file as I would like, but it sounds like a winner, and one you probably won't see covered on the other sites you read. It seems that SuicideGirls, the well-known "altporn" Web site, is currently suing one of their former employees on noncompete grounds. The defendant is a photographer who used to work for them, signed a contract with a noncompete clause, and now they claim is running a Web site of his own in competition with them against the non-compete agreement. His claim is that A. he's not running the Web site in question, he only did contract photography for it (which evidently wouldn't violate the agreement); B. the Web site in question isn't in competition with SuicideGirls under the definition in the agreement; and C. at least one of the clauses they're trying to enforce wasn't even in the contract he signed. That's all a pretty straightforward contract dispute and without having all the evidence, you and I can't meaningfully judge it. What interests me more is some of the stuff I've read in people's comments on the case, which suggests a consensus that this case is part of a larger pattern of SuicideGirls using legal threats, intimidation, and other shady means to create and preserve a monopoly on the "altporn" genre. Their position (hotly debated by other players) is that they are the first and original "altporn" Web site, they invented it, they "own" the "altporn" genre, and anyone else doing similar things is stealing from them. Sound familiar? Reports from the defendant's side of the current lawsuit are in the lithium_panic Livejournal community. A news article about it is on FleshPanic. Both those linked pages contain softcore pornographic photos. I'm looking for more details and will post them as I find them.
