Gay Porn Star Michael Lucas Triumphs in "La Dolce Vita" Litigation Victory

U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl granted summary judgment to Lucas Entertainment, prolific producer of gay porn, defendant in a copyright and trademark infringement case brought by International Media Films, which claimed to be the copyright owner for the United States for the classic Fellini film La Dolce Vita, which was parodied in the defendant’s celebrated two-part gay porn extravaganza, Michael Lucas’s La Dolce Vita, which won numerous awards from the gay porn industry.  (Perhaps even more awards than the Fellini original won....)

In Int’l Media Films, Inc. v. Lucas Entertainment, 2010 WL 1257358 (S.D.N.Y., March 31, 2010), Judge Koeltl found that plaintiffs failed to prove that they held the copyright to the Fellini original.

Anybody hoping to read an entertaining detailed comparison of the Fellini film and the Lucas parody will be disappointed by Judge Koeltl’s opinion. It seems he never had to get to that point in the case, having found the plaintiffs would not have a valid claim in any event due to lack of sufficient evidence to support their claim of ownership to the original film.

Koeltl laconically relates: "The Lucas film contains sexually explicit depictions that are not present in the Fellini film, and which occupy the majority of the running time of the Lucas film. . . There is no evidence that any consumer has returned either film on the grounds that the consumer was confused about its contents. Retailers and distributors of the Lucas film generally do not stock the Fellini film." (We suspect this last statement may not be true in New York City these days, in light of the efforts of porn dealers to comply with City zoning requirements by stocking lots of non-pornographic inventory. It would be an interesting research project to determine how many adult businesses now stock both the Fellini film and the Lucas film. In light of this opinion, perhaps we will see "2-fer" offers....)

The opinion may prove diverting, however, to intellectual property fans, with its detailed history of the tangled copyright ownership of the Fellini film, which includes charges of forgery concerning various legal documents at the heart of the case.

So congratulations are due to Andrei Treivas Bregman (a/k/a Michael Lucas) on his big federal court victory, and having his real name immortalized in a published federal court opinion.