Copyright infringement, invasion of privacy and potentially defamation claims could exist when your photo, naked, pornographic or otherwise, is posted on a website without your permission. CNN Reports on one lawsuit which is being brought against a revenge porn website where ex-boyfriends can post naked or pornographic pictures of girlfriends who have broken up with them. The website allegedly will take the picture down if you pay them money. For many web visitors, this smacks of extortion.
CNN Reporter: These are the photos Holly Toups doesn’t mind sharing on the internet, but the 32 year old recently found semi-nude pics of herself on what’s called a revenge porn website. And what was that like?
Holly Toups: I think I stopped breathing, I don’t know, like, for a while. CNN Reporter: Toups went from being a modest teacher’s aide in Beaumont to an unintended porn star, after her ex-boyfriend posted explicit photos along with personal information.
Holly: I was at a store one day and somebody was like, “Oh, Hey! You’re the girl from that website.”
CNN Reporter: Toups and 25 other women are suing the website and its owner who has a fictitious address in Richardson.
Attorney John S. Morgan: But I am very confident, I will find that person and it really touched my heart the amount of emotional devastation that every single one of these women has suffered.
At the end of the day, the website owner is facing claims of copyright infringement, invasion of privacy and defamation.
CNN Reporter: The lawsuit comes after the women say the website refused to remove the photos unless they paid a fee.
Holly Toups: I thought was just outrageous that. First, they had the gull to ask me to do that.
The website allegedly will take the picture down if you pay them money. For many web visitors, this smacks of extortion.
CNN Reporter: It’s not hard to track down these women through Facebook and other social media. We found dozens of them in North Texas. And one who we contacted told us her own father alerted her that she was one of the victims of revenge porn.
Holly Toups: It was humiliating to say the least. I didn’t really want to go anywhere. I started questioning, you know, peoples’ politeness, and whether it was genuine, you know, how are you doing? Or...where, in the back of their mind, they are like, “I saw you on that site.”
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