The question of who controls a small independent media outlet has been rocking the left of Los Angeles for over a year.
This week, the Knock La Orb Orb La La La Explosion exploded into the legal system, in a duel lawsuit claiming copyright and trademark infringement, honour and even the theft of trade secrets.
One corner is a group of prominent independent journalists, including Cerise Castle and Ben Camacho.
On the other side, Ground Game LA is a crude advocacy group that is closely tied to a left-handed shift in the city’s political power structure.
Ground Game LA formed Knock LA in 2017, charging the nonprofit community journalism project “by Progressive in Los Angeles.” The publication flourished during the pandemic as protests against public health restrictions and police reform placed a new focus on city governments. Knock LA and its highly online reporters helped turn that hot-stopping fuss towards the activity with their popular voter guide and live coverage of public meetings.
Ground Game LA also spiked in a particularly fertile moment for local leftist politics.
Meghan Choi, co-founder and executive director of Ground Game LA, led the bids for Nithya Raman and Eunisses Hernandez’s Rebel Council and helped him break out of his incumbent. The group also gathered behind the successful campaign of Councillor Hugo Soto-Martínez and city controller Kenneth Mejia in 2022.
However, there was a deep rift between the organization’s leadership and some of the journalists who became synonymous with Nockla’s work.
Camacho and Castle continue to make profits from their jobs without permission, even after Ground Game LA blocked access to the site, seeking nearly $5 million in damages. Ground Game LA claims that journalists essentially tried to hijack news outlets, obtain trademark names, steal confidential mailing lists, and misrepresent themselves as the outlet’s legitimate leader.
On Tuesday, Castle and Camacho filed federal copyright infringement lawsuits against the Ground Game, the Liberty Hill Foundation and the California Fund.
Castle and Camacho in their lawsuit said groundgames and nonprofits were using copyrighted journalistic works “on multiple platforms” and “maliciously and systematically.”
In question is Castle’s 15-part series, “The Tradition of Violence,” about gangs of deputies within the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The violent law enforcement creek’s account went viral when Castle announced it at Knockla in 2021, earning praise and helped strengthen the Sheriff’s Department’s scrutiny.
Camacho is known for obtaining photos, names and serial numbers of 9,000 LAPD officers, which he later published and was later targeted in two lawsuits in LA City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto has identified 23 images and articles that the ground game said had been compromised.
The duo tracked the breaches until March 2024, when Castle led efforts to separate Knock LA from the ground game. The move was prompted by reasons such as “editorial overreach,” “request for unpaid work,” “racism,” and “lack of support for Mr Camacho,” according to the lawsuit, after Feldstein Soto’s office sued him.
Within weeks, Camacho and Castle claim they have been separated from “deliberately hostile and retaliatory actions” from Knock LA’s emails and other systems. They say the move continues to capture journalistic work and “permits ground games to benefit from their misuse.” As independent journalists, both maintain copyrights and claim that they have “performed employment contracts” or have never transferred intellectual property.
The pair blames the ground game for diverting their work to raise funds and heighten. By providing grant money and social media promotions, California Basics and Liberty Hill “significantly contributed” to the infringement, the lawsuit alleges. Both organizations declined to comment.
Castle and Camacho are seeking an injunction prohibiting the use of copyrighted works, and among other requests, they are seeking damages “total of more than $4,650,000.”
“This lawsuit is to protect years of investigative work that I developed independently. “No one should be allowed to do your job, trust your work and use it for fundraising without consent. It’s not solidarity – it’s exploitation.”
On Wednesday, Groundgame will rebuttal with force, file a federal lawsuit, showing a 119-page display in which Camacho, Castle and two others grab the reins of Knockla, register it as their company, and illegally use the trademark on their offshot site.
The Ground Game Suit, along with photo editor Camacho and editor-in-chief Katya Shatte, focuses on the spring of 2024 when Castle knocked on Knock La’s then editor.
When the Groundgame board rejected that proposal, the trio “started to interfere” in Knock LA, and the parent organization quickly shut down their Knock Mail accounts.
The argument quickly spilled into general vision. Castle, a black man, claims that it holds a racist ground game and a social media “toolkit” – a talk point, hashtags and draft posts, with nonprofits holding news outlets “hostages.” Other contributors joined Castle and recorded a video of him denounce the ground game of “killing local journalism” and pleading them to stand with them.
Groundgame LA claims that at the same time, derivative groups film the organization’s confidential mailing list, send multiple emails without permission, “misrepresenting themselves as a legitimate successor to Knockla” and bypassing donations by “misrepresenting” their separation from the wider group.
Derived groups use their contact lists to “advertise, promote, grow… promote, grow and grow personal and personal interests,” according to the lawsuit, calling such behavior the “theft” of occupational secrets.
Ground Game LA also hijacks Knock LA’s social media accounts and denounces derivative groups trying to lock the organization.
Their lawsuit aims to require any group to use mailing lists, knock on LA trademarks, or restore access to “blocked social media accounts.”
Knockla continues to publish new material, and its website still keeps Castle’s series stand out in the Sheriff’s Office. However, their Instagram and Twitter accounts have been dark for several months.
Neither side responded directly to the allegations, but both lamented that the accusations had escalated to the lawsuit.
“Our people worked very hard and did everything they could to prevent them from reaching this place,” Choi, executive director of Ground Games LA, said of the duel lawsuit. “Essentially, this is about people trying to hijack our project and our identity.”
In a statement shared by lawyer Almutada Smith, Camacho highlighted the sacrifice of “time, risk, dedication” that entered his photographs and writing.
“We didn’t want to take legal action, but our efforts to resolve this personally have been ignored,” Camacho said in a statement. “Creators, particularly those from historically excluded communities, should not be expected to see others benefit from their work without permission or credit.”
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