Homeowner Suing Icon Male And Nica Noelle Files New Lawsuit Against Billy Santoro, Nick Capra, Brandon Wilde, Wolf Hudson, Colton Grey, And 20 Other Gay Porn Stars
The never-ending lawsuit for copyright infringement against deranged director and model abuser Nica Noelle (a.k.a. Monica Jensen, as seen above) and Icon Male parent company Mile High Media just took another bizarre twist, as the homeowner suing Noelle et al. has filed a new, completely separate civil suit against 25 gay porn stars who appeared in the Mile High porn movies that prompted the civil action over three years ago.
As you’ll recall, Noelle and her Icon Male/Transsensual crew illegally shot at least a dozen porn movies in a rental house on Martha’s Vineyard (as seen above) in 2014 and 2015, and homeowner Leah Bassett is suing Mile High VP Jon Blitt and Noelle for copyright infringement, as several of Bassett’s paintings were seen in the movies. Late last year, Bassett’s motion for summary judgment on the copyright claims was approved by the judge, and the dollar amount for each infringement (i.e., every time one of the paintings in the house appeared in an Icon Male scene) is still to be determined.
A jury trial for the original suit is set to begin on August 5th, but it’s not clear if the new suit (read it below) will be joined in with this trial, or if it’ll be handled completely on its own. Like the first suit, this new one is asking for a jury trial and compensatory damages to be paid to Bassett for all of the infringements, and she’s also asking that all copyright infringing images be “permanently destroyed.” Unlike the first suit (which named Noelle and Mile High as defendants), this new one is going after 25 different gay porn stars who appeared in the movies.
The gay porn star defendants (they’re all listed in the suit below, with their legal names redacted) include Billy Santoro, Brandon Wilde, Nick Capra, Connor Maguire, Wolf Hudson, and 20 others, and as delightful as it would be to see a horrid ghoul like Santoro sued into oblivion, trying to hold performers (i.e., employees and contractors) liable for what Mile High Media and Jensen produced is absurd, and the suit will likely be dismissed before it goes any further. The porn stars were paid to perform in scenes and had nothing to do with production or distribution of the content, so there’s no way they can be held accountable for someone else’s alleged copyright violations.
In addition to the 25 gay porn stars, new defendants in the new suit include other executives at Mile High who appear to be relatives of Jon Blitt, as well as BuddyProfits/Gamma, which helped distribute the films via content management on the Icon Male and Transsensual sites. Here’s the new suit, which, in addition to copyright infringement, is also suing the 25 gay porn stars for “infliction of emotional and mental distress”:
Basset vs, Gay Porn Stars by Zachary Sire on Scribd
Again, I predict the 25 porn stars named as defendants will likely be removed in the coming weeks. And while Bassett might have some claims against the other defendants (Gamma and the Blitts), it’s still not clear why this suit was even filed. It’s suing for the exact same thing (copyright infringement) as the first suit, so why weren’t the defendants just added to the first suit? Bassett’s attorney, John Taylor, could not be reached for comment as of post time. This is a developing story…
