Venusian Arts Slapped With Another Lawsuit
If it’s not one thing it’s another.
Though Venusian Arts recently settled their lawsuit with The Mystery Method, it seems they’ve got another one on their plate.
Roy Gordon, perhaps better known as “Ray Gordon”, has filed a complaint naming Viacom, Venusian Arts, and Erik VonMarkovik (Mystery) as defendants. (Note: Roy Gordon is known for filing spurious lawsuits. Most notably suing Google for $13 BILLION with a B for copyright infringement. He lost that suit and now owes google roughly $11,000 in legal fees)
The Charges?
- False and Misleading Advertising Under The Lanham Act
- False Designation of Origin Under The Lanham Act
- Antitrust Violations
- Lanham Act Disparagement
- Fair Housing Act Violation
- Tortious Interference
Roy Gordon is seeking $31 MILLION in compensation.
Now, for those who aren’t legal gurus, Viacom and VA are accused of faking the reality show “The Pickup Artist”, and gaining a monopoly on the seduction industry because of the show’s influence… leaning heavily towards The Mystery Method as well as Venusian Arts. As you go down the list, the claims become increasingly spurious.
Mystery and VA are also accused of hiring models in order to make bootcamps more successful, threatening Roy Gordon’s mother, trying to warn the public of Roy’s supposed mental illness (which is where the Fair Housing Act claim stems from), among other things.
What does PUA Watchdog think?
There is only one claim which we could see as at least plausible - The faking of “The Pickup Artist”.
The question about whether The Pickup Artist used staged infield footage is incidentally the subject of our next Full post. We did extensive research, watched all of the footage, talked to the vast majority of people involved in the making of show and who were present at the filming (including some of the contestants themselves), and we’ve found that (save for the scene inside the limo at the strip club), although the clips were edited in a fashion that changed the chronology of some of the events, the raw infield footage was not staged and did not use actors. We of course will have more information in the full post.
As for the other claims made in this suit, the vast majority of them are clearly and obviously unfounded (i.e. Hiring models for bootcamps - which even disgruntled former employees/instructors of any of the companies named will point out is a complete falsity).
There are also a myriad of factual errors in the complaint itself (which was written by the plaintiff and not an attorney), and in many portions of the complaint, Roy Gordon seems to go off into a ramble about things that have no relevancy, which is going to make it difficult to have anyone take the complaint seriously.
We don’t think this will develop into anything serious. This case will be dismissed as soon as it gets into a judge’s hands. It is certainly an interesting read though.
Read the entire complaint here.
Read the Filing Information here.
