Woman loses lawsuit over "Girls Gone Wild" video.

[Minimalist]

It's hard to see that thumbnail pic, and clicking it gave a save/open window rather than a webpage, so I took another look at the video. Here is a larger one of most self exposure I could find. Looking at it again as a still shot, it is kind of iffy as to whether there is nipple-circle showing. It is quite clear though that she was ok with a lot more than ordinary cleavage showing.

Hmmm. No tan lines.

[Scented Nectar]

Hmmm. No tan lines.

Good observation. Let no one ever tell you that your brain stops working when you're looking at tits!!!

[Eilonnwy]

- She consented to the filming by entering the signed, cordoned off ggw area.

Does not imply consent to further being filmed with her top off.

- Rather than being forced to show something she wasn't already showing like going from cleavage-only to nipples, she on her own showed part of the nipple, and the shirt pulling showed a bit more of the same body part. I'm thinking that may have added to questions about whether she did give nipple filming consent (not to be confused with shirt pulling consent).

She said no, that's all the matters. It doesn't matter if she was willing to show cleavage, she was not willing to show her entire breast and that is her right.

- The jury was to only rule on the filming/distribution, not the assault. The assault was never dealt with. The woman was known to her, but she never pressed charges or even got angry at the time. This probably was used against her if she tried to claim any trauma resulting from a criminal act.

Once again, digging for any reason to victim blame. She said no, her image was used illegally, End of Story.

- The fact that she continued hamming it up for the camera and smiling a split second after does not look good for her. It makes it appear that she was ok with it being filmed and expected everything to carry on normally.

Because when you're drunk, that totes equals consent. /sarcasm

Bullshit. It doesn't matter how drunk a person is, if they haven't given consent, that's the end of it.

- It all boils down to whether she gave nipple filming permission. If the only nipple exposure was by assault, there might not have been any legal question, and she would have won.

She didn't, so why are you still arguing and victim blaming?

[fr0d0]

Now married, the mother of two girls and living in the St. Charles area, Doe sued in 2008 after a friend of her husband's reported that she was in one of the videos.

So she was embarrassed that this came out and tried to cash in on the deal. For whatever reason, the jury did not buy her story.

I don't see that. I see a person who now has responsibilities embarrassed by illegal imagery of her existing in the public domain.

[Tiberius]

As someone here mentioned, the jury could have given her anything between $0 and $5 million. People always try to sue for large sums of money; it doesn't mean they will get the money in the end. The jury gave the wrong verdict; they should have awarded her damages (probably not the whole $5 million), not tried to punish her for something that wasn't her fault.

[Autumnlicious]

The issue of implied consent was strictly pertaining to the filming of it. Not to the top pulling itself. There are a number of ways that she probably did not have a legal leg to stand on. Below is some stuff that is just my own opinion/guesses/partial info based on the limited stuff I've had access to.

- She consented to the filming by entering the signed, cordoned off ggw area.

Entering an area without signing a contract does not in anyway hold one to ANYTHING but a minor agreement (in small claims matters) and is mostly UNENFORCEABLE.

Seriously, "She consented to the filming by entering the signed, cordoned off ggw area."? Really? So if I happen to enter an area for filming, perhaps out of curiosity or stupidity, I have given the film makers a right to encourage and profit off of my image without me signing a RELEASE FORM?

Are you so fucking stupid that you forgot that? I live near Hollywood, and goddamnit I hear a lot of "No form, no TV/Movie appearance" from my friends in the industry. I've also worked on media post processing for a beta product I'm trying to pull out of mothballs from a few years ago - I think I'd have a basic framework of commonsense on what to film and not to film for testing my engine...

You're an idiot if you think that merely being in a place implies someone can use your image and perhaps encourage a crime.

I'm sorry, but this is clear cut - if the producers knew that someone had entered and shouldn't have been there, they could have cut out the five seconds of film. Really - a few seconds. Hell, they could have gotten hours more from another area anyways.

- Rather than being forced to show something she wasn't already showing like going from cleavage-only to nipples, she on her own showed part of the nipple, and the shirt pulling showed a bit more of the same body part. I'm thinking that may have added to questions about whether she did give nipple filming consent (not to be confused with shirt pulling consent).

A bit of skin and it's all over, eh? So if you manage to show me part of your backside, I am given full right to film someone else pants'ing you?

- The jury was to only rule on the filming/distribution, not the assault. The assault was never dealt with. The woman was known to her, but she never pressed charges or even got angry at the time. This probably was used against her if she tried to claim any trauma resulting from a criminal act.

Profiting off of a crime is illegal. Shame people seem to think that this kind of assault is not a crime.

You know, plenty of women who claimed to have been raped often drop the charges, not because the crime never occurred but because they are made to feel so uncomfortable in pursuing justice they give up. Guess they're all faking it, against what statistics say (I read quite a few of the posted articles in the Objectification thread and found several credible).

- The fact that she continued hamming it up for the camera and smiling a split second after does not look good for her. It makes it appear that she was ok with it being filmed and expected everything to carry on normally.

Once again, no contract and profit from a crime. I'd mighty like to pants you...

- It all boils down to whether she gave nipple filming permission. If the only nipple exposure was by assault, there might not have been any legal question, and she would have won.

Yes, and without a contract, we shall know only this: it may have been actual consent, but the fact that she was uncomfortable with the whole nine yards tells us that GGW should have cut that segment out - and they knew it.

I'm all for profit and filming in the land of the free, but I also know a little thing called commonsense - that is far more prevalent in a sober post production crew than a drunk woman.

There are any number of people here who are naively assuming that trial outcomes are ONLY based on the letter of the law. There are far more human aspects to the issue.

Bottom line: This broad rubbed the jury the wrong way.

Or the jury might have wanted to punish her for doing such a thing in the first place.

After all, we /never/ have juries who would rather punish the victim for setting up a situation to begin with. Stupid women wearing mini-skirts and walking on the street, just askin' to get a bit o' fun - we'll punish her for that.

Or in Muslim countries, that damn bitch shouldn't have attracted the attention of unrelated men and gotten raped - whip her! (Saudi Arabia )

[Scented Nectar]

- She consented to the filming by entering the signed, cordoned off ggw area.

Does not imply consent to further being filmed with her top off.

Due to the nature of the show, I'm pretty sure the signs would have said something like '...filming, including any toplessness or nudity'.

- Rather than being forced to show something she wasn't already showing like going from cleavage-only to nipples, she on her own showed part of the nipple, and the shirt pulling showed a bit more of the same body part. I'm thinking that may have added to questions about whether she did give nipple filming consent (not to be confused with shirt pulling consent).

She said no, that's all the matters. It doesn't matter if she was willing to show cleavage, she was not willing to show her entire breast and that is her right.

But if they determined that she was indeed willing to show her nipple (circle part of it may have been enough for this to be valid), then the shirt pulling would not have been seen as any more damaging than the parts she admits consenting to. Thing is though, I don't really know. None of us do. We don't have access to the unedited film and the complete court transcripts.

- The jury was to only rule on the filming/distribution, not the assault. The assault was never dealt with. The woman was known to her, but she never pressed charges or even got angry at the time. This probably was used against her if she tried to claim any trauma resulting from a criminal act.

Once again, digging for any reason to victim blame. She said no, her image was used illegally, End of Story.

It was used immorally and unethically, but not technically illegally. All the jury was deciding on was the legal facts, not the morals. The morals would have only come into play, had they determined that she had NOT legally consented to filming. Only at that point are they allowed to use morals and emotions to determine an appropriate compensation for the amount of damage done to her.

Contractual consent is different than sexual consent. With sex one can legally revoke consent at any point. It's possible that in ggw's case, consent starts and ends with entering and leaving the filming area.

- The fact that she continued hamming it up for the camera and smiling a split second after does not look good for her. It makes it appear that she was ok with it being filmed and expected everything to carry on normally.

Because when you're drunk, that totes equals consent. /sarcasm

Bullshit. It doesn't matter how drunk a person is, if they haven't given consent, that's the end of it.

Did I say that? I think that ggw should be held to the same contractual standards as other companies regarding the consent of an intoxicated person. But apparently that was not what this case was about. Unfortunately they seem to be allowed to contract with drunk people, so the jury was likely not allowed to consider that aspect of it.

- It all boils down to whether she gave nipple filming permission. If the only nipple exposure was by assault, there might not have been any legal question, and she would have won.

She didn't, so why are you still arguing and victim blaming?

I'm not. I don't think she attracted the shirt pulling. I don't think she deserved it. I do think though, that she may be a money chaser, and that she doesn't seem to have had a legal leg to stand on.

---

Entering an area without signing a contract does not in anyway hold one to ANYTHING but a minor agreement (in small claims matters) and is mostly UNENFORCEABLE.

Apparently it means 'implied consent' legally. Not knowing the legal technicalities, I can't know much further about it, but it's legal. Obviously it's a law that should be looked at and improved since it's not clearcut enough, but that's how it seems to be right now.

Seriously, "She consented to the filming by entering the signed, cordoned off ggw area."? Really? So if I happen to enter an area for filming, perhaps out of curiosity or stupidity, I have given the film makers a right to encourage and profit off of my image without me signing a RELEASE FORM?

I don't know the details of what constitutes 'implied' consent vs what is probably 'explicit' consent. In fact, I am only going by second hand info that the signs and cordoning off is how ggw does their dancefloor filmings. For some, like when they approach women on the beach and talk them into some tit showing, someone said that they get them to verbally agree on camera. I don't know the details or whether what I read was even accurate.

A bit of skin and it's all over, eh? So if you manage to show me part of your backside, I am given full right to film someone else pants'ing you?

Possibly in the legal sense, if it was under the same contractual situation that ggw was operating under. In fact it sure sounds like it, since I was already consenting to showing my butt in the filming area. If however, I reported you for it being a crime, or if you had exposed something that I had not been already willing to show, maybe not. With crimes, there might be laws. I know that one can often not be allowed to profit off of one's own crimes, but in the case of others, there are news and documentary shows that can legally do it all the time. Someone wrote that ggw has described themselves as making documentaries.

Profiting off of a crime is illegal. Shame people seem to think that this kind of assault is not a crime.

Who said that anyone is pro-shirt-yanking? It is only not **legally** a crime, since it was not reported to the police, not even complained about or gotten angry about at the time, and the statute of limitations is likely long over.

You know, plenty of women who claimed to have been raped often drop the charges, not because the crime never occurred but because they are made to feel so uncomfortable in pursuing justice they give up. Guess they're all faking it, against what statistics say (I read quite a few of the posted articles in the Objectification thread and found several credible).

What does that have to do with this woman's girlfriend horsing around and yanking her top? She was not raped. We are not talking about a traumatic event like rape where the woman isn't believed.

Once again, no contract and profit from a crime.

Legally, an implicit contract. Legally, no crime. Morally? Doesn't matter, the jury must only determine the facts as they pertain to the legalities in question.

I'd mighty like to pants you...

Ok, but first I'd like to show it to you by my own volition so that you will have my implicit consent for while I remain in the filming area...

[Autumnlicious]

Due to the nature of the show, I'm pretty sure the signs would have said something like '...filming, including any toplessness or nudity'.

Unknown, but if they did, it doesn't change the fact that they are profiting from her obvious discomfort - something that cannot be denied.

But if they determined that she was indeed willing to show her nipple (circle part of it may have been enough for this to be valid), then the shirt pulling would not have been seen as any more damaging than the parts she admits consenting to. Thing is though, I don't really know. None of us do. We don't have access to the unedited film and the complete court transcripts.

No we do not, but that doesn't change the nature of the discussion, as the uncertainties were already stated earlier.

So, therefore, by your logic, if someone is wearing their pants rather low, exposing their underwear and partially the ass, it is fine to film their ass, especially if someone else happens to expose it for you, against their obvious discomfort?

It was used immorally and unethically, but not technically illegally. All the jury was deciding on was the legal facts, not the morals. The morals would have only come into play, had they determined that she had NOT legally consented to filming. Only at that point are they allowed to use morals and emotions to determine an appropriate compensation for the amount of damage done to her.

In a legal grey zone, laws are often wrong. That is why we have a little thing called judicial review. And people are often wrong - the average thimble headed gurken we call jurors are more swayed by theater than logic, as can be seen from "If the glove don't fit, you must acquit."

And her image was used illegally, part of it was because of a crime done to her (assault). One is almost never allowed to use footage taken of a crime unless specifically released by the involved parties or ordered by a judge. The jurors evidently believed, from the quotes earlier, that their view of personal image is "no big deal." Does that change the fact that someone was uncomfortable for going the whole nine yards and yet they still used it? No.

Contractual consent is different than sexual consent. With sex one can legally revoke consent at any point. It's possible that in ggw's case, consent starts and ends with entering and leaving the filming area.

There was no contract signed. The best they did falls under the law of implied oral consent (no pun intended) - which is very loose and usually cannot be used to enforce anything other than a he-said, she-said situation. That is why people make these obscenely long contracts detailing the extant to which you sign away your rights.

Did I say that? I think that ggw should be held to the same contractual standards as other companies regarding the consent of an intoxicated person. But apparently that was not what this case was about. Unfortunately they seem to be allowed to contract with drunk people, so the jury was likely not allowed to consider that aspect of it.

Signing a contract while not in the right mind voids it. Why should an implied oral contract be any different, considering the lesser nature of it compared to a full blown contract? Hint, it isn't.

I'm not. I don't think she attracted the shirt pulling. I don't think she deserved it. I do think though, that she may be a money chaser, and that she doesn't seem to have had a legal leg to stand on.

Punishing someone just because you think they are a "money chaser" when there are numerous faults and issues all over the place isn't just immoral, it is against the spirit of the Law.

And I am always against using the letter of the Law against the spirit of the Law.

---

Entering an area without signing a contract does not in anyway hold one to ANYTHING but a minor agreement (in small claims matters) and is mostly UNENFORCEABLE.

Apparently it means 'implied consent' legally. Not knowing the legal technicalities, I can't know much further about it, but it's legal. Obviously it's a law that should be looked at and improved since it's not clearcut enough, but that's how it seems to be right now.

You miss the point - it is a very weak binding agreement. A verbal agreement, for example, is much stronger. What if the "notice" was not displayed conspicuously? It might have been there (letter of the law) but it was not obvious (spirit of the law). You get many of these examples in case law.

Seriously, "She consented to the filming by entering the signed, cordoned off ggw area."? Really? So if I happen to enter an area for filming, perhaps out of curiosity or stupidity, I have given the film makers a right to encourage and profit off of my image without me signing a RELEASE FORM?

I don't know the details of what constitutes 'implied' consent vs what is probably 'explicit' consent. In fact, I am only going by second hand info that the signs and cordoning off is how ggw does their dancefloor filmings. For some, like when they approach women on the beach and talk them into some tit showing, someone said that they get them to verbally agree on camera. I don't know the details or whether what I read was even accurate.

Implied consent is a weak and severely limited form of contract - that is due to the fundamental nature of US courts stating that one cannot sign away certain rights even knowingly and for others has to be spelt out so as to prevent abuse.

And yes, that is a verbal contract - they have witnesses, and usually film it so to assuage claims of being mislead.

A bit of skin and it's all over, eh? So if you manage to show me part of your backside, I am given full right to film someone else pants'ing you?

Possibly in the legal sense, if it was under the same contractual situation that ggw was operating under. In fact it sure sounds like it, since I was already consenting to showing my butt in the filming area. If however, I reported you for it being a crime, or if you had exposed something that I had not been already willing to show, maybe not. With crimes, there might be laws. I know that one can often not be allowed to profit off of one's own crimes, but in the case of others, there are news and documentary shows that can legally do it all the time. Someone wrote that ggw has described themselves as making documentaries.

No, it isn't allowed, unless you sign away your rights to sue or state that you can show skin or any other variation.

And it is often seen that people claim "to be making documentaries" in the process of violating the rights of others. It's called shifting the blame - and it is done under the assumption that no one will catch them on that and null all their previous work.

And once again, I will refer to the rape victims dropping or not even reporting things - just because they pull out of it (hehe) doesn't mean it didn't happen. Just because you do not report a crime doesn't make it any less real. Like Roman Polanski raping an child and fleeing to Europe before serving his debt - the asshole only got away due to procedural errors (ah, idiot Americans) - not a statute of limitations breach. Just because you can flee justice long enough, shouldn't automatically absolve oneself. Nazi hunters will tell you that, and I agree with them.

Profiting off of a crime is illegal. Shame people seem to think that this kind of assault is not a crime.

Who said that anyone is pro-shirt-yanking? It is only not **legally** a crime, since it was not reported to the police, not even complained about or gotten angry about at the time, and the statute of limitations is likely long over.

True, but we have a little something in Minnesota called tolling the statute of limitations, which dictates that the statute of limitations can be offset or even discarded in cases of being a minor at the time, being mentally incompetent at the time (in this case, that applies), etc,. Research it - I did.

You know, plenty of women who claimed to have been raped often drop the charges, not because the crime never occurred but because they are made to feel so uncomfortable in pursuing justice they give up. Guess they're all faking it, against what statistics say (I read quite a few of the posted articles in the Objectification thread and found several credible).

What does that have to do with this woman's girlfriend horsing around and yanking her top? She was not raped. We are not talking about a traumatic event like rape where the woman isn't believed.

Not found credible - sounds mighty like being not believed. That aside, if a crime is not traumatic, it is not entitled to justice?

There was a crime. There was profit. There was drunkeness. There were weak contracts. Looks to me to be nothing but a legal minefield that should have taken months to decide, not a few days.

Once again, no contract and profit from a crime.

Legally, an implicit contract. Legally, no crime. Morally? Doesn't matter, the jury must only determine the facts as they pertain to the legalities in question.

Fuck morals - that is part of what the dumbass jury decided to use anyways...

I am trying to point out that implicit contracts are very weak and personal control over image is regulated in industry with explicit written contracts - thus the argument that it is okay to use an implicit contract when the running standard is contrary is weak, within doubt. One must consider the standards the defendant is partial or connected to - this is one of them.

I'd mighty like to pants you...

Ok, but first I'd like to show it to you by my own volition so that you will have my implicit consent for while I remain in the filming area...

That takes the fun out of it.

[Rhizomorph13]

But what about the son of the law?

[Autumnlicious]

Just as much importance as the son of Frankenstein got... Poor bloke.