I certainly agree that it's difficult to see anything resembling a meaningful public interest in publishing the tapes - I'm surprised but pleased to see that the US courts didn't do their normal "you're a public figure so you have no rights" as tends to be the case with defamation or privacy cases.
Their fear is that if they concede on this point, what else will they have to concede and will their profession back them when they are in the same position, but for more noble reasons. Self preservation and principle.
They'd also get some peer pressure in the form of ostracism for breaking with the standard professional stance on the question.
Of course, the amount is likely to be revised down in appeals.
Gawker was 100% in the wrong to release this tape, and they've shown a pattern of seriously abusive behavior before now. Some of sites in the Gawker network have decent writers with some integrity, and I'll be sorry that if need to find new employment; but Gawker as an entity is too corrupt to be salvaged.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gawker#Cond.C3.A9_Nast_CFO_pro... [2] http://nypost.com/2016/03/11/blah-blah-blah-gawker-editor-bl...
Freedoms of this nature must be protected regardless of the context. Gawker's unethical behaviour accross the network, from outing comfortably closeted gay people to failing to disclose obvious bias, is awful; but should not be forbidden. The cure is worse than the illness. My apologies to Matt Drudge if it seems like I'm making light of the action as intellectual pornography.
Journalists look at Gawker writers and naturally think "There but for the grace of God, go I". So they have a lot of sympathy.
On a personal level I would love to see Gawker the company fold - but punishing media for publishing true facts is troubling. After all Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Wiener also had their privacy invaded. The idea of a media outlet being sued (although with good chance of winning the case) could hurt coverage of worthier targets.
someone give gawker your bank account details, and gawker decides to publish. it's okay for gawker to do this?
They are being made responsible for harm that results.
These are different things.
I think Jerry "Tycho" Holkins expresses best how I feel about Gawker in this whole affair.
https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2016/03/14/the-didact...
> The causes they enunciate are tarnished, just for being in their mouths.
That's the kind of thinking that gets you atrocious policy, especially in the judicial sphere. As I said below, people who want bad to enshrine bad precedent will pick the most unsympathetic targets in the courts in order to get it - including law enforcement (actually, especially law enforcement. Why isn't Apple helping the FBI stop terrorists???)
The courts sometimes see through this trick. Did you know that your Miranda rights exist because the Supreme Court threw out the conviction of a scumbag who had, indisputably, robbed and raped a mentally handicapped girl? It's sad that they didn't this time though, and that apparently the vox populi didn't either.
Er, he's calling them a bottom feeding tabloid rag. What does that have to do with policy or precedent?
(notably that post was from four days ago, not in reaction to the ruling)
[1] http://nypost.com/2016/03/09/gawker-editors-line-a-sex-tape-...
Good advice that's too easily forgotten in the moment.
Forget the NYP completely and watch the video of how it played out on court. He comes off as a complete piece of shit.
That doesn't remotely describe what happened to the women whose pictures were published a few years back.
It's a little disquieting to read a comment that suggests there might have been a free speech angle to the latter story. Bollea's case might (in fact, probably will) be reversed on appeal.
>That doesn't remotely describe what happened to the women whose pictures were published a few years back.
According to Tampa police they think the tape was stolen by an employee of Bubba the Lovesponge[0]. The only essential difference I can see is that the photos of the female celebrities were created with their knowledge, which I don't think is much of a difference at all.
What's sad is that this was pretty much an unforced error. They already got plenty of page views from the post that described seeing the tape. The editor who made the decision is no longer even there and failed at his own online media startup. What shouldn't be overlooked is how much Gawker invested in its own content-management system, Kinja...the estimates are as high as $20 million for what is literally a glorified, multi-site commenting system [4].
Very few online organizations could survive that kind of sunk investment...Gawker's editorial bent was such that it would post the Hogan tape just for the hell of it rather than to make pageview profit...but Gawker pretty much lost all of its great writers and reporters over the past two years, including Adrian Chen (who now seems to regularly turn huge features at the NYT and the New Yorker) and Nitasha Tiku.
I'm going to miss Deadspin especially. Sports news and entertainment was already monopolized by ESPN/Disney...we don't even have Grantland anymore.
[1] http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/18/buzzfeed-nbcuniversal/
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/business/media/nbcuniversa...
[3] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-08/disney-sai...
[4] http://digiday.com/publishers/gawkers-kinja-retreat-shows-fa...
https://twitter.com/nicknotned/status/710973280308559873
Hulk Hogan statement on the jury verdict:
forgets god did it to him in the first place
Of course we all know this will go to appeal, where the real fate will be decided. Gawker does not have 115M to pay, and Hulk is not likely to find himself 5x richer.
The real question is where does the First Amendment end up with this ruling? That is the change (or not) that would matter most to the average citizen.
https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/710972390566563845
First they came for Gawker,
and I did not speak out.
Because fuck Gawker.https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=newss...
"he website claimed that along with Chubb Insurance Co., it had agreed to forgo $600,000 in defense costs in exchange for Nautilus’ agreement to defend it from July 2013 onward. In a motion for summary judgment filed in October 2014, Nautilus said that its policy only covered “accidents,” and said that Gawker’s intentional release of the tape and its accompanying story didn’t qualify. Gawker responded with a cross-motion for summary judgment in November, arguing that its policy covered damages from bodily injury, which “indisputably include emotional distress and mental anguish” under New York law. Friday’s settlement put an end to those competing motions."
As of now, two plus hours after TechCrunch [1], BBC [2], Recode [3], CNN [4], Buzzfeed [5], HN [6], Ars Technica [7], Wired [8], Slate [9] and countless other sites have all published articles about the verdict, Gawker's site is silent on the topic. And this comes after they've done daily articles throughout the trial, but now the pill is apparently too bitter to swallow.
I don't think that being first is always best, but Gawker sure seemed to think so up until now. Apparently reveling in public about their own misfortune is finally the bridge too far.
[1] http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/18/jury-awards-hulk-hogan-115m...
[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-35849140
[3] http://recode.net/2016/03/18/florida-jury-hands-hulk-hogan-a...
[4] http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/18/media/hulk-hogan-gawker-jury...
[5] http://www.buzzfeed.com/maryanngeorgantopoulos/hulk-hogan-ga...
[6] right here!
[7] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/115-million-verdi...
[8] http://www.wired.com/2016/03/jury-awards-hulk-hogan-115-mill...
[9] http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/03/18/jury_award...
Gawker had every right to post this video, they also now have the full responsibility for the consequences. This case has established that you can still post sex tapes, but you now run the very real risk of loosing a lot in doing that.
This court case doesn't say you can't, it just says that doing it could be prohibitively expensive to do it.
Everyone on the Internet from ACLU and EFF will rightly defend the right to link. Well, the sleazy tabloids will continue doing what they do.
This is no win for privacy because it only protects those who are willing to go to court over this. Gawker is scum (particularly for doxxing people) but Hulk Hogan is no saint either.
Edit: grammar and spelling
I'm all for free speech but you don't need to post non-consensual porn to the internet to accomplish that.
oh god, you think it's bad here in the anglo world? Don't look at Korea and Japan then.
Invasion of privacy, despite its questionable origins, is now generally recognized as a valid tort and outside of the protections of the First Amendment. No new precedent is being set here.
I'm not sure if this news has circulated widely beyond people who listen to his podcast[0], but Bill Simmons (founder of Grantland, creator of '30 for 30'; fired by ESPN/Disney last year after criticizing Roger Goodell) has hired the core of Grantland's former writers, editors and staff, to start 'The Ringer':
Currently half-launched as an email newsletter, presumably while the infrastructure for a proper website is being developed.
If Deadspin does indeed shut down after this (... though I think the people in this discussion are taking this as far more of a given than it is), then there will be a massive hole in this side of independent sports media, that The Ringer would be a top contender for filling.
--
[0] http://thebillsimmonspodcast.tumblr.com/tagged/Bill-Simmons
When it goes to appeal I am sure the number will be negotiated downward or nobody wins and Gawker closes.
I'm pretty sure the Hulk Hogan team would consider that a victory. If they are able to bankrupt and shutter Gawker, they will be vindicated.
Ya know how if you buy a car second hand, and it turns out the car is stolen, you have to give it back, even if you bought it honestly?
This feels similar to me. He never gave consent and had a reasonable expectation of privacy. While you can't give him back his privacy here, the video never existed in a public domain sans-crime, so it's publishing (much like your ownership and monetary outlay) is secondary. Except that here, Gawker was a party to the crime.
For me, the 1st doesn't trump privacy. I have no doubt others feel differently.
It's like how the 2nd amendment gives you the right to bear arms and the government can't take that away from you but a landlord can keep you from having a gun in your apartment.
If this was a criminal case the First Amendment would be relevant (by my understanding) but since it's civil, it's irrelevant.
Privacy outweighs the first amendment at this stage. But lets remember, that Gawker is a pretty far stretch to say they are living within the 1st amendment rights.
Was he likely to make $115m over the rest of his life? We'll never know.
The economic damages are perhaps on the high side, but considering all of the ways Hogan has been able to license his brand up to this point -- and that those avenues are likely no longer open to him or at least greatly reduced -- it isn't out of the question that he could have earned that amount over the next 20 years.
Financially speaking, the jury has objectively awarded Hogan a ton of money ($15mm more than he was seeking even) -- and punitive damages have not even been decided yet! It's not inconceivable that the total amount will approach Gawker's entire net worth. But that isn't how damages are decided -- something like this can clearly have a considerable negative lasting impact on the ability to earn in the future, and I think it's clear in this case that Hogan has been impacted in this way. I'm sure that played into the jury's math. Without knowing more about their deliberations, I think it's too early to say if they erred on the high side.
From the perspective of media companies starting to worry about being torn to shreds for posting this sort of thing, all I can say is "good". Freedom of speech is extremely important. A free press is extremely important. Posting an illegally obtained sex tape and then further refusing to remove it is not a victory for either, it is sleaziness and pandering to the lowest denominator of society to make a buck.
The best way to combat that tendency of some parts of the media is to make the buck not worth grabbing -- when you risk having to pay it back ten times over.
They do deserve it. Not because they are a terrible site, but because of their actions that resulted in this case.
This isn't some random act of happenstance that put Gawker in trouble. It was something brought about entirely by their own actions and decisions.
It's not a bad thing to have a legal precedent that says you cannot post private sex tapes online, without permission, and then refuse to take them down when ordered by the court.
Most people would have agreed with that without needing to be told it by the court.
I guess however there was enough financial incentive for Gawker to keep the tape up even after being ordered to take it down, and if that's the bed you're going to make, no-one will feel sorry for you when you have to lie in it.
You're eliding some very important details. The precedent it sets is for individuals whose private sex tapes have been published against their will to sue media companies for massive amounts of money.
If I made a private sex tape, and it were somehow published, I'd want to be able to sue for it too. Whatever happened to tech nerds being in favor of privacy? I don't want the government snooping on my phone calls and I don't want media shit-tards spreading my sex tapes. It all falls under the umbrella of privacy to me.
That will be soooo terrible if we set a precedent that "journalists" actually have to actually give a shit about the standards of their alleged profession.
1) Nonconsensual porn shouldn't be posted to the internet. The details can be discussed just fine without the visual.
2) It most certainly shouldn't be kept online after a judicial order to take it down.
Can't you find a better term? This makes it sound like a rape video.
Edit: meaning improved protections against baseless lawsuits that could be damaging regardless of their merit. The simple way to protect your news company from being sued for releasing leaked sex tapes is to simply not release leaked sex tapes, which I think will be the major takeaway from this case.
These huge sums are required to set an example and not just be a fine. If he only won $500,000, then then next time a similar situation arises it just becomes a math question. Can they can earn more than $500,000 by releasing and paying the "fine".
There is no slippery slope here. Free speech advocates should look in another castle.
What struggling ecosystem? The tabloid industry? Gawker is little more than a tabloid. And as far as I know the vapid tabloid industry is doing just fine.
In the case of this particular ecosystem, I'm still not seeing the downside.
We didn't need this court case to get a precedent for that.
For the 1A concern here, consider the Anthony Weiner case, in which indisputably private photos of Weiner were also published. I don't like that they were (I think he could have been just as effectively ejected from public life with good writing) but it's concerning to think that he'd have a tort hammer to swing to keep the story from coming out at all.
A public official exposed behaving inapropriately or hypocritically is much more obviously a matter of public interest -- to the people who elected him based on a different representation of values -- than exposing the inner workings of an entertainer's sex life. Gawker tried to stake their claim on the public interest basis in this case and lost. In my opinion, that decision was correct.
I also wish that sex scandals didn't have power over political careers because of the perverse incentives that it creates for politicians to behave in certain ways.
Weiner also could have sued over his photos, and possibly should have been able to win his case. To me, if he does the job that he's elected to do then it shouldn't matter what he does on his own time. With the caveats that those actions are within the law, and also that I did not and would not ever vote for him.
Even if Weiner had sued it wouldn't have changed the course of his scandal, based on what we've seen in other cases. Look how long it has taken for Hogan's case to be adjudicated, and it has hardly wiped the memory of his sex tape from the public consciousness.
That good writing can mention that the author has seen the photos or videos, and describe them as necessary to support the story.
Of course, if the photos and videos are not published the subject might accuse the publication of lying, but the original publication can show the photos or videos to other publications who can also write stories about them.
In a case like Weiner's, I don't think the public would believe him if it came down to several major newspapers all reporting that they had seen the photos first hand, versus Weiner saying that they are all lying.
If the subject tries to sue a publication over their written story, the photos or videos will be evidence for the defense, and the likelihood of them getting out to the public goes way up. That should provide quite a bit of discouragement of intimidation lawsuits.
The line should be drawn at pornography/actual nudity being published without people's consent. Good writing is sufficient to convey the message.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/07/17/gawkers-appar...
I think $115 million is OK.
Let me put it this way: I don't care for Gawker and wouldn't mind personally if it sank (though there are good journalists there doing good work); I do care for the potential chilling effect this could have on other media.
(And let me make clear that I do think Bollea should have been compensated and Gawker punished, just not with $115 million.)
It's not about scoring a zinger against the opposing counsel. It's about putting across your narrative with the jury. I highly doubt Daulerio's legal counsel thought that narrative should be that he's just a grade-A asshole. No surprise that someone who couldn't keep it together when it really mattered to him in a deeply personal way can't be trusted to maintain journalistic integrity during the day-to-day operations of a site.
Miranda created the right to have the government inform you of your rights.
And yes - I will have case against the person that gave information to gawker. But not against gawker themselves.
A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
Punitive Damages are intended to prevent X from becoming too small.
It's not the channel of SMS that makes it fair game, it's that he explicitly shared it with a third person. It could have been a telegraph message, a voicemail, or a hand drawn picture. The point is that he publicly shared it.
The First Amendment doesn't give you free reign to say whatever you like whenever you like, and there are already limitations on the First Amendment with regards to things like obscenity and speech that appeals to prurient interests:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
Posting a private sex tape without permission is not likely to pass the Miller test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test
Distributing naked pictures of someone without their consent has never been legal. The fact that they were taken in the cameraman's home is no defense. This is no different than a frat boy putting a hidden camera in the frathouse bathroom before a party and then distributing pics of freshman girls with their pants down.
Which law prohibits it?
This is a good outcome in every possible respect.
But I think it's pretty self-evident that doing multiple wrong things to do one final wrong thing is worse than just doing the final wrong thing.
Letting individuals arbitrarily decide punishments and then processing them in civil cases it the crazy part. Not that a corporation can make a mistake and have to pay $100M, that happens everywhere, and that works.
It would be equally crazy if A could sue B and demand B went to prison for 200years for no other reason than A finding it an appropriate amount of time.
The difference is that a multi million fine would be awarded by a criminal court, since it is a punishment, and the money would go to the government and not to whoever got a hot coffee. It's perfectly fine if a small business would be fined 1% of their revenue, and McDonald's would be too.
I know this is probably some quirk of the US legal system but I really don't understand the benefits of having civil courts dealing with punishments that seem arbitrarily set by one part in the case rather than by law.
If this were the normal thought process, vastly fewer lawsuits would ever be filed. Lots of things can happen to a plaintiff. Sure, she could win, in which case her attorneys' fees are typically subtracted from the damages. She could also lose, in which case she typically has to pay the attorneys. She could also lose in such a fashion that she could suffer other economic penalties as well. If compensation were the best possible outcome from a lawsuit, many potential plaintiffs would just go to Yelp with their complaint about McDonald's.
Of course, that might be a better society in which to live, but it would be a very different society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_laws_of_the_United_Sta...
http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/revenge-porn-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_porn
> The term is also often misused to describe non 'revenge' scenarios, including nonconsensual pornography distributed by hackers or by individuals seeking profit or notoriety
I'm not the only one that uses it that way :/
It's the first time I've ever seen the term. Since it seems to be (somehow) a relatively established term for this kind of thing, I guess I'm wrong to ask you to not use it, but I think it's meaning is confusing, and I'd probably just call it a private sex tape.
And I realize it's not cool to mention downvotes, but to the people who downvoted the simple question/request I made about this... seriously?
Like, "I wish there was a better term for this, it makes it sound like a rape video." Actually it's hard to find exactly the right succinct term...
I know it's commonly used as in 'revenge porn' but is it 'porn' when people record themselves having sex for private use? Seems to me it trivializes takes away from the issue, which is an invasion of privacy.
In fact don't know exactly what Gawker showed, but if the content was pornographic they would presumably be responsible, as all porn publishers are, for complying with record keeping under 18 USC 2257. An impossibility in this case.
I suppose, and this would be a net win for everyone, except lawyers?
> many potential plaintiffs would just go to Yelp with their complaint
Again isn't that a positive thing? If you feel a law was broken you tell the police, if it wasn't, you post a bad review?
> that might be a better society
Isn't the US legal system the odd one? I might be wrong here. What's the lawyers-to-population ratio or legal-fees-per-lifetime compared to other systems? I admit I have no data but my gut says "not good".
Preemptive for the "just send a letter to Congress" simpletons: for the half of Congress who aren't themselves lawyers, why will my letter be more persuasive than the very active lawyer lobby that gives them millions of dollars? Why will the lawyer president not veto your magical bill? Why will the lawyer judges in every court in the land not overturn it?
I wrote it the way I did, which I don't think was that bad, because out of about 40 posts, two used the term (which I had never heard of before in this sense) "nonconsensual porn", and they were both by the same poster.
What does non-consensual mean in this sense BTW? Does it mean someone is recorded without their consent, or a site publishes someone's video without their consent?
And the downvotes keep coming, and for sp332, for simply agreeing and suggesting an alternative, and for my reply to sp332, so it's clearly not simply about how I phrased the question. Some weird people here.
Edit: Hahaha. Someone's upset, downvoting every post of mine here.
OT: I didn't downvote this comment, but I do tend to downvote any comment that mentions downvotes out of the belief that it mentioning it completely detracts from the conversation. Frankly, you should edit your comments to remove the downvote remarks.
Just a suggestion for the future, if you want someone to change the words you may want to mention the change you'd prefer at the time so its an option given HN's edit window.
Funny thing is, if anything, I expected people to agree with the sentiment expressed. That it's virtually buried - and the one person who openly agreed, and suggested an alternative, was also downvoted - blows my mind.
Talking about downvotes is flat out boring and it adds nothing to the conversation. Therefore, I'm disengaging from this conversation and strongly encourage you to do the same.
You can maintain quality without encouraging or enabling negativity (downvoting). Simply upvote comments you think are quality.
The fact that not only was my comment downvoted, but also a comment agreeing with me, demonstrates that people were downvoting because they have a different point of view (which I personally believe is the main reason people downvote anywhere, including here), or for some other petty reason.
My annoyance with this is not just because a reasonable comment of mine was buried, it's because I see this happen all the time here. Totally reasonable comments being whited out at the whim of a couple of people, for whatever reason they like, is irritating and detrimental to a thread and to the site.
>Talking about downvotes is flat out boring and it adds nothing to the conversation.
And the best way to avoid that is don't allow downvotes for comments in the first place. They're not necessary, they encourage negativity rather than positivity, and they're wide open to be abused/misused.
>Therefore, I'm disengaging from this conversation and strongly encourage you to do the same.
Fair enough. Like you, I will also disengage from this conversation after having said what I wanted to say.
Edit: and 3 more downvotes (across multiple comments, not just this one) immediately (within a few minutes) after posting this, simply for having the audacity to reply to a post to me, thus proving my point about abusive, petty downvoting.