Texas Women Sue X-Rated Revenge Website

CBS local ^ | 01/23/2013 | J.D. Miles & Angela Martin

[Responsibility2nd]

FORT WORTH (CBS 11 NEWS) – Sexy pictures, taken for private purposes, are finding their way online.

The website, described as a revenge porn site, is posting explicit photos submitted by men seeking revenge on their ex-girlfriends.

But a group of Texas women may get the last laugh, after filing a lawsuit against the site.

Hollie Toups, 32, says she “stopped breathing for awhile” when she found semi-nude pictures of herself on the site. Toups went from being a modest teacher’s aide in Beaumont to an unintended porn star, after an ex-boyfriend posted explicit photos along with personal information.

“I was at a store one day and somebody was like hey you’re the girl from that website,” says Toups.

Toups and 25 other women are suing the website and its owner, who has a fictitious address in Richardson.

“I am very confident I will find that person,” says John S. Morgan, plaintiff’s attorney. “It really touched my heart the amount of emotional devastation every one of these women have suffered.”

The lawsuit comes after the women say the website refused to remove the photos unless they paid a fee.

“I thought that was outrageous that they had to gall to ask me to do that,” says Toups.

It’s not hard to track down unsuspecting women who had nude and sexually explicit photos through Facebook and other social media.

CBS 11 News found dozens of women in North Texas on the site, and one who says her father alerted her she was a revenge porn victim.

“It was humiliating I didn’t want to go anywhere I started questioning people’s politeness was it genuine how are you doing or was it in the back of your mind I saw you on that site,” says Toups.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

Local attorney Victor Johnson says the lawsuit could be difficult to pursue if website’s operator can prove its a bulletin board and that they have no control over the content.

[metmom]

You’re pretty stupid to begin with if you even let someone take pictures of yourself naked in the first place.

You think it’s NOT going to travel?

[dmz]

I appealed to my daughter’s sense of guilt.

If you do that, and the guy posts the pics, I will have to kill him and spend the rest of my life in jail. You don’t want that, do you?

[Bob]

site is down. I went to check on it to make sure that this horrible site was removed.

Thanks for the update. As far as I can tell, using a fake address for a domain registration is grounds for a registrar to immediately suspend a site. ICANN rules have very specific requirements on how domain registrations are to be maintained.

[Graybeard58]

If the owner was going to charge a fee to have the pictures removed, then it could be argued that the site was not a bulletin board since the owner had control of the content and could remove the photos!

And the "fee" for removing them is extortion.

[usconservative]

So perhaps next time these women might actually THINK about what may happen before they pose for racy photos for their “boyfriends?”

[Nea Wood]

When did I say that I approved of the women posing for the pictures? I do think what the men did was worse because they did it for revenge.

[Daffynition]

[Gamecock]

It’s not hard to track down unsuspecting women who had nude and sexually explicit photos through Facebook and other social media.

Is was common even back in the days of film...

[cherry]

I hope the women win because what is supposed to be a private affair, an implied contract so to speak, that these women agreed to...to pose nude or semi nude..was for their boyfriends eyes only....

we can't slander people or libel them, and we can't even record their conversation without letting them know...how can posting private humiliating pics be any more legal?

[JerseyHighlander]

You are openly demanding the end to all First Amendment Rights over electronic transmission. This isn’t a slippery slope, if you had your way, it all ends, immediately, and free communication over the internet would rapidly cease as ambulance chasers lawfare anyone and everyone.

The women are suing the Website owner and web provider GoDaddy, both of whom have no liability under current law.

FreeRepublic put itself on the line in court to defend Fair Use doctrine, you are now on FR demanding the end to ALL the fundamental liability victories in Fair Use doctrine that FR won.

[ican'tbelieveit]

It shouldn’t just apply to boyfriends. Unfortunately, even marriages today are fleeting fantasies, more for the wedding process than the longterm viability of the relationship. The rule should be no posing for “racy” photos period.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

It was a joke...