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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.