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What do Pamela Anderson, Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Cameron Diaz, Fred Durst, and Colin Ferrell all have in common? That’s right, Celebrity Sex Tapes and it seems to be the new rage in Hollywood, with a new one being released as often as main stream Hollywood block buster DVD releases, but what if after that exciting walk on the wild side you change your mind and don’t want anyone else to see it? Well, celebrity Hollywood if you think that it’s easy to stop someone from seeing you in your birthday suit, then this blog is for you.

In the past year I have had a few clients who have been faced with this issue surrounding the release of a sex tape so I was forced to do some research on the subject (mostly legal, but of course, it is important to see the tapes as well). It turns out that it is very tough to stop a sex tape from being legally released for the following reasons.

First, in order to stop a sex tape from being released the celebrity must be granted an injunction by Court, or an order to stop the distribution of the tape. Aside from the fact that it is difficult to get a Court to take sex tape injunctions serious enough to hear injunction arguments, if you are fortunate to get your day in Court, you have to prove that there is a “public interest” in stopping the tape from being released. In other words, you have to prove to the Judge that your drunken night full of wild kinky sex and a camcorder is more important to hear than preventing that predatory lending scheme from harassing someone’s Grandma or stopping Pee Wee Herman from popping up at the neighborhood elementary school. Probably not…

But lets say that you have the ingenious eloquence of convincing the Judge that your case should be heard, if so, then the second hurdle is to convince the Court that it is in the best interest of the public to stop distribution of the sex tape. It is a long shot…although I personally would hope that the Court would seriously consider stopping the distribution of a sex tape featuring Flava Flav.

Companies that put these sex tapes out know that celebs will have a really hard time legally preventing their release, so they do the smart thing and use the system to their advantage. These companies are genius at implementing quick and dirty gorilla marketing strategies. You won’t see any billboards that say “Coming Soon” or commercials during your favorite show. The strategy is to put out the buzz about the tape one or two weeks before it is released and try to get the media to latch on. The sex tape consumer isn’t exactly a picky group. There is no need for focus groups, or persuasive commercials. Once there is an awareness of your favorite celebrity doin’ the nasty then it pretty much sells itself.

So, the moral of this blog is to remember the next time you want to have your wild adventure recorded for kicks, think twice while watching that red blinking light. If you still want to “live it up” after that night out at Goa or Pure then either make sure that there is only one video camera in the room or destroy the tape after you view it or it may be slated for release before Iron Man goes to DVD.


So who really benefits from sex tapes? The Celebrity? The Distributing Company? Give me your comments.

By: Richard Jefferson, Esq.


Richard B. Jefferson, Esq. is a partner at Fagerholm & Jefferson, a Professional Law Corporation, located in Burbank, California (www.lawyersrock.com), a full service entertainment law firm.