A few days back the website Endgadget published the article titled “Tor Project is being sued for enabling a revenge porn site”. The situation is quite simple. The Tor Project is a collection of software that enables people to communicate with each other in privacy and to create internet sites that are censorship-resistant.
What this means is that by using Tor software it is possible to create websites on the Internet which are anonymous, this is, their ownership cannot be traced back to anybody. The Tor software does this by creating distributed databases located in millions of computers. In other words, the Tor software and the Tor Project host exactly nothing in their website. They just provide the tools. That’s it! This is called agnostic technology.
One of the sites that uses Tor technology is the pornographic site Pinkmeth. This is a website that specializes in so-called “revenge” photos and videos. The idea being that if your significant other did you wrong, you would go and post intimate material in there for “revenge” purposes.
It so happens that a few pictures from a criminal justice major at a Texas university (where else?) ended up in said website and she went ballistic. She sued Pinkmeth and Tor (see attached lawsuit).
Originally the lawsuit involved Tor stating that “It is clear from the TOR website that TOR is knowingly assisting websites such as Pinkmeth in committing torts against Texas resident, that the sole cause of action alleged against TOR herein (conspiracy) arises from its conduct in Texas and against Texas residents…”
Eventually, after a few (presumably million) people told this lady that TOR had nothing to do whatsoever, she (and her right-wing power attorney) dropped the complaint against TOR, remaining only Pinkmeth in it.
Great, right!
Justice has been served.
The system at work right?
Well, no!!!
Let’s go back and review the facts.
- Lady drops her clothes and allows boyfriend to take pictures.
- Lady does not care about those pictures (otherwise there would have been an NDA).
- Lady/boyfriend separate.
- Boyfriend pissed-off allegedly posts pictures in anonymous website or
- Unknown hacker hacks boyfriend’s e-mail, pc, etc and posts picture in anonymous website
- Lady sues website and the anonymous software provider.
Does this make any sense whatsoever to you? Of course not!
To begin with, if this lady was so concerned about her nakedness, why did she allow those pictures to be taken in the first place?
Also, why didn’t she have an NDA with the boyfriend? Even a verbal one would have sufficed! But hold on because this gets even more ridiculous. She actually studies law!
Then, after she relinquished any privacy concerns, she sues the website where the pictures were published instead of the ex-boyfriend for either posting the pictures or not erasing them or not taking the necessary precautions not to be hacked!
Of course, the lawsuit alleges a bunch of nonsensical legalese about Pinkmeth such as:
“solicit and post suggestive and naked photographs and videos of persons who were recorded without their consent or permission”
So what? How exactly is soliciting a crime? Of course, in the current and nonsensical so-called judicial system, soliciting is theoretically a crime in some conditions. But soliciting is nothing more than talking. The person acting is actually fully and completely responsible for their acts. Soliciting is nothing but legal idiocy.
“solicit computer hackers to gain unauthorized access to such files”
Again, more soliciting nonsense.
“post social media pages of their victims”
Which happen to be public! Again, if this lady did not want her pictures from social media plastered all over the Internet, she should not have had social media pages to begin with! Spiking about blaming other people for their own errors!
“do not obtain permission of their victims”
And she knows this how exactly? Did she interview “other” people from the website? No. She is just assuming that Pinkmeth has no permission. But then again, why should they? Privacy is purely a personal responsibility. If you don’t want your pictures plastered somewhere, don’t take them in the first place, and if you do, make sure you get and NDA!
“do not verify the ages of their victims”
And again, how does this lady know this? Did she ask any of the “other” people from the website? No. She is just assuming. Ahhh… but then in the current “justice system” assumptions go a very long way indeed.
“ostensibly engaged in the illegal distribution of child pornography”
This is a good one. We can already see the scene: “Your Honor, we believe that they are distributing child pornography but we don’t have any proof whatsoever that said pictures are underage. “ This is nothing but an obvious and bold face attempt to get all those rednecks / religious fanatics to support her claim and create political pressure on the judge not to be lenient of child pornographers. Nonsense!
Again, if there are indeed pictures of underage ladies in the website (we have a hard time believing there will be any “children” in there; teenagers maybe) it is a matter that should be elucidated by their parents or guardians. First off, were those underage people emancipated? If the answer is yes, then those pictures are not about underage people. If they were not emancipated, then it is fully their parents/guardians responsibility! The legal concept of “underage” is patently ridiculous and nonsensical as we explained at length in our article The Rights of the Child.
“cannot claim “fair use” of any images”
This is yet another legal concept which determines when, where and under which conditions an IP can be re-used without the copyright owner’s permission. It is nothing but a pile of dung as it derives from IPR laws which are one and the same.
Besides, how exactly does she know that said pictures in the website have not been released under some copy-less type of license? We don't know and apparently she does not either, allegedly.
“Plaintif, she owns all copyrights to the images stolen by the Defendant”
Copyright! Good one. So the lady has no problems in dropping her clothing, getting photographed, making no arrangements whatsoever for those photos, not even requesting them back (considering she “owns” the copyright) and then she has the bold face to go and demand censorship. Not to mention that again, copyright being a child of IPR is no less dung that the laws that created it. OK. Whatever.
Note: please see the Glossary if you are unfamiliar with certain words.
 Pink-Meth-Summons-and-Complaint.pdf | [ ] | 8456 kB |
