from www.adultcybermart.com – The dispute between Arrow Productions and VCX over the rights to Deep Throat is not an easy one to follow, but by the sounds of it, there’s “landmark” written all over this classic legal case. After two years, there’s an upcoming settlement in the fracas.

Simply put, Arrow for years has laid claim to ownership and distribution of the Deep Throat movie starring Linda Lovelace, but in 2009, VCX began putting out the movie for sale on its website.

But if you read the particulars of the case, VCX sounds like it did so more out of spite because Arrow was selling The Devil in Miss Jones and Debbie Does Dallas. www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=48934

On April 24, 2009, “Arrow” filed an intellectual property trademark and copyright infringement lawsuit against VCX and its owner David Sutton.

According to the complaint, VCX is the successor-in-interest to a California corporation named VCX Incorporated formed in 1979 (along with related corporations named Direct Video Corporation and Showcase Video Corporation) in the early years of the home videotape market.

In 1986, one or more of those companies went into bankruptcy and Rudy Sutton [David Sutton’s late father] purchased the rights to the film libraries owned by those corporations from the bankruptcy trustee.

Rudy Sutton later incorporated VCX in 1996. Rudy passed away on December 14, 2006, but the business continued under the direction of David Sutton. VCX now sells the films that it owns on DVD as well as over the Internet.

Arrow claims to be the owner of the copyright to Deep Throat. It was directed by Gerard Damiano and was produced by Plymouth Distributing owner Louis “Butchie” Peraino, who later called the company Arrow Film and Video (now Arrow Productions).

The critical issue in this case is whether or not the copyright rights to the original film are in the public domain. VCX says yes.

A pre-1989 copyright law required all works to be published with a copyright notice, so another issue here is whether Deep Throat was published without a copyright notice. If it failed to do so, then the movie might be in the public domain based on pre-1976 copyright laws and VCX will have made its case.

VCX,in fact, has possession of a print that doesn’t have a copyright notice on it, and that’s the substance of its argument.

Back in the day, Peraino was “four-walling” Deep Throat, a term that has to do with the exhibition of a film. Arrow claims that during the early theatrical exhibition of the movie, it maintained control of the prints and the showing of the movie.

Four-walling essentially means that Arrow’s employees rented the theater, sold the tickets to moviegoers, collected the tickets, and operated the projector, and such theatrical exhibition did not constitute “publication” under the Copyright Act.

But Arrow is arguing that once the movie was put on videotape that act of “publication” was fully in force and that its subsequent distribution of the film on videotapes purportedly had the required copyright notice.

Arrow asserts that it registered its copyright to the movie in March 1979.

VCX’s argument is that it has a print without a copyright notice on it that played across the country, and that it was the act of publication when it was exhibited and therefore in the public domain. It will up to a judge to decide.

Actually it may all come down to who was first out of the gate with Deep Throat.

Arrow originally applied for the mark DEEP THROAT (for prerecorded videotapes involving adult content) back in 1998, but the application went abandoned after failing to respond to an office action. Arrow filed again in 2004, and this time, the mark was registered (for pre-recorded videotapes and DVD’s featuring adult entertainment programs and movies).

Arrow also registered the mark with the Nevada Secretary of State on February 23, 2009. Arrow claims to have used the mark to identify a series of adult movies going back to 1972.

Making the issue more complex is the fact that Arrow also cites to a trademark on the mark LINDA LOVELACE. Lovelace was the performing name of Linda Susan Boreman.

However, “Linda Lovelace” was played by different actresses in several “Deep Throat” sequels and there were two additional movies other than “Deep Throat” that use the Linda Lovelace “character” in the title.

Arrow currently has three applications pending for the LINDA LOVELACE mark. Arrow also registered the mark with the Nevada Secretary of State on March 17, 2009.

Arrow’s causes of action are, with respect to the DEEP THROAT mark, for federal and state registered trademark infringement, counterfeiting, common law trademark infringement, false designation of origin under Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act, and trademark dilution under federal and state law.

With respect to the LINDA LOVELACE mark, Arrow’s causes of action are for state registered trademark infringement, common law trademark infringement, false designation of origin under Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act, trademark dilution under federal and state law. Arrow’s final cause of action is for copyright infringement.

Arrow is seeking injunctive relief, an impounding and destruction of all infringing copies of the movie, and statutory damages (for the counterfeiting and copyright infringement claims).