Tag: adult website liability

April 2, 2011 Computer Crime, Privacy

Sexting minor’s lawsuit against website moves forward despite her violation of federal law

Doe v. Peterson, 2011 WL 1120172 (E.D.Mich. March 24, 2011)

When plaintiff Jane Doe was seventeen years old, she took some nude photos of herself and sent them over the internet to her boyfriend. Somehow the photos ended up on an adult website owned by defendants. Doe brought a civil cause of action against defendants for violation of the federal child pornography laws and for intrusion upon seclusion, public disclosure of private facts, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligence.

The defendants pled an interesting affirmative defense to Doe’s claims — in pari delicto. A plaintiff’s actions that are found to be in pari delicto are just as bad or worse than what the plaintiff is suing over, so in cases like that the court will not award relief. Doe moved to strike this affirmative defense. The court granted the motion.

Although the court found that “it seems clear that [Doe was] guilty of violating federal laws prohibiting the production and distribution of child pornography,” it held that as a matter of law the doctrine of in pari delicto was not available to the defendants as an affirmative defense.

The court refused to allow “broad common-law barriers to relief where a private suit serv[ed] important public purposes.” Doe was a member of the class sought to be protected by the statute she had violated, and was not equally culpable as defendants allegedly were in permitting the distribution of the images. In this respect, it was not clear that Doe was of greater or equal fault than defendants, so the in pari delicto defense did not apply.

April 1, 2008 Section 230

No CDA immunity for adult-oriented Web site in right of publicity case

Doe v. Friendfinder Network, Inc., — F.Supp.2d —-, No. 07-286, 2008 WL 803947 (D.N.H. March 28, 2008)

Plaintiff Doe learned that a nude image and some biographical information about herself had been used to set up a bogus profile on the adult-oriented personal-ad Web site Adult Friend Finder. She sued the operator of the site alleging a number of claims, like defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. She also alleged misappropriation of her right of publicity under state law, and false designation of origin and false advertising under the federal Lanham Act.

Adult Friend Finder moved to dismiss the claims, arguing that the Communications Decency Act (“CDA”) at 47 U.S.C. 230 immunized the site from liability for the information provided by someone other than the site operator. The court agreed with Adult Friend Finder as to the majority of the claims, holding that the claims were barred by the CDA where the plaintiff sought to impose liability on the site as the publisher or speaker of the information.

But the court held that the CDA did not immunize Adult Friend Finder from Doe’s state law claims for violation of the right of publicity, or for violation of the federal Lanham Act.

Section 230(e)(2) provides that “[n]othing in this section shall be construed to limit or expand any law pertaining to intellectual property.” You may recall that last year the Ninth Circuit [in Perfect 10, Inc. v. CC Bill, LLC, 488 F.3d 1102 (9th Cir. 2007)] held that 230(e)(2)’s restriction on immunity only applied to federal claims involving intellectual property (leaving state law claims barred).

The court in this case disagreed with the Ninth Circuit on this point, looking at the plain language of the statute and finding no meaningful distinction between state and federal causes of action involving intellectual property, especially given the presence of the word “any” when decribing “law[s] pertaining to intellectual property.”

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