The video’s been up for a year and the married two-thirds of its cast have been in a legal fight with the site since September. They chose the interesting route of claiming copyright infringement, something that The Hollywood Reporter legal blog points out is
Interestingly enough, Gawker would like to make it completely clear that they didn’t take the video down because, y’know, it was the right thing to do or anything. Oh, no no no. On the contrary…
From THR, Esq.:
“’Although we are confident that our use of the video on Gawker was protected fair use, because the posts already had been available to our readers for nearly a year, and because we already had won an important decision from the court striking large parts of the plaintiffs’ damages claims, we agreed to remove the posts as part of a global settlement to avoid the burden of further litigation,’ Gawker COO Gaby Darbyshire said in a statement.”
While this is a semi victory for the couple, the fact remains; no matter how famous you are, millions of bored people will pay to see you naked and there’s not yet a quick way to put the sex video genie back in the bottle, so, unless you’re willing to pay exorbitant legal fees for months, you better keep your private home movies as private as possible.