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CAMMARATA v. BRIGHT IMPERIAL LIMITED
KEVIN CAMMARATA, Plaintiff and Appellant,
v.
BRIGHT IMPERIAL LIMITED, Defendant and Appellant,
BANGBROS.COM et al., Defendants and Respondents.
No. B218226.
Court of Appeals of California, Second District, Division One.
Filed January 26, 2011.
Bostwick & Jassy, Gary L. Bostwick, Jean-Paul Jassy and Kevin L. Vick for Defendants and Respondents Generation Financial, Ltd., Bangbros.com, Inc., Fling.com, LLC, Utherverse, Inc., Mansef Productions, Inc., Brazzers Technology, Inc., LALIB Limitada and Stallion.com FSC Limited.
Rothken Law Firm and Ira P. Rothken for Defendants and Respondents Friendfinder California, Inc., Friendfinder Networks, Inc., and Various, Inc.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTSROTHSCHILD, J. In the 21st century, businesses of all kinds are having to adapt to a constantly changing commercial landscape. The business that the parties describe as the "adult entertainment" industry is no exception. Websites that originally made their money by offering such material on a subscription or pay-per-view basis are being replaced by "tube" websites which offer their content for free and make their money through advertising. According to one adult entertainment executive, the formerly profitable subscription-based websites "have been brought to their knees" by the tube-based sites. In this case the former proprietor of a subscription-based website brought an action against the proprietor of a tube-based website and the website's advertisers alleging they were engaged in unlawful and unfair business practices. All defendants moved to strike the complaint as a SLAPP under Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16).1 The trial court granted the defendant website owner's motion in part and granted the advertisers' motion in full. The plaintiff and the defendant website owner appeal. We conclude that the plaintiff's complaint was subject to a SLAPP motion because it arose from the defendants' conduct in furtherance of their right of free speech on a public issue. We further conclude that the defendants' motions should have been granted as to the entire complaint because the plaintiff failed to show a reasonable probability of success on any cause of action. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS BELOWPlaintiff Kevin Cammarata alleges that he is the former owner of several subscription-based adult entertainment websites who, "under pressure from and as a result of the unlawful practices of the [d]efendants . . . sold his business at an unfavorable price." Defendant Bright Imperial Limited is the owner of a tube-based adult entertainment website called Redtube.com. The other defendants are advertisers on Redtube. We will refer to the latter as the "advertising defendants." We will refer to Bright and the advertising defendants collectively as "the defendants."
1. SLAPP is an acronym for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. (Jarrow Formulas, Inc. v. LaMarche (2003) 31 Cal.4th 728, 732, fn.1.)
2. All future statutory references are to the Code of Civil Procedure.
3. Because clause (4) of section 425.16, subdivision (e) swallows clause (3) we will only analyze defendants' SLAPP motion under clause (4).
4. The parties do not contend that the terms "public issue" and "issue of public interest" have different meanings and courts have treated the two terms alike. (Scott v. Metabolife Internat., Inc. (2004) 115 Cal.App.4th 404, 420 & fn. 5; Du Charme v. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (2003) 110 Cal.App.4th 107, 119.)
5. The court struck Cammarata's purported cause of action for injunctive relief on the non-SLAPP ground that injunctive relief is an equitable remedy, not a cause of action. (Wong v. Jing (2010) 189 Cal.App.4th 1354, 1360, fn. 2.)
6. Cammarata quotes a confidential memorandum prepared by Bright which claims that in the first year of its existence Redtube's profit margin rose to between 80 and 90 percent.
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