Hidden Empire Holdings LLC, Hyper Engine LLC, and Deon Taylor filed a complaint against Darrick Angelone, AOne Creative LLC, and On Chain Innovations LLC, accusing the defendants of breach of contract, copyright infringement, conversion, violations of the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and Computer Data Access and Fraud Act.
According to the complaint, Hidden Empire Holdings LLC is an independent film studio co-run by Deon Taylor. Hyper Engine LLC is a marketing agency founded by Taylor. The complaint alleges that AOne Creative LLC’s sole members are Darrick Angelone and his wife; the complaint also alleges that Darrick Angelone created On Chain Innovations LLC for the sole purpose of infringing on the plaintiffs’ trademarks.
According to the complaint, the defendant, Darrick Angelone, was formerly employed by the plaintiffs as an information technology contractor. The complaint asserts that Darrick Angelone leveraged this former position to take control over the plaintiffs’ corporate emails, websites, social media accounts, thus preventing the plaintiffs from having agency over their own intellectual property and business.
The complaint explains that “[the defendants were] infringing on the valid copyright associated with Plaintiffs’ movie titled ‘Fear’ by using expressions from the film to create a video game and non functional tokens (‘NFTs’) for their own benefit and without a valid license to use [footage] from the film or exploit the unique characters in the film. ”
The plaintiffs seek the following for relief: a permanent injunction preventing the defendants from accessing any of the plaintiffs’ accounts, email systems, etc.; a requirement for the defendants to restore control to the plaintiffs, regarding their business and intellectual property; an order restraining the defendants from promoting their unauthorized Fear game—based on the plaintiffs’ movie; disgorgement of all the defendants’ unlawful profits; and awards of all pertinent damages.
The plaintiffs are represented by Sanders Roberts LLP.
