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California Man Arrested for Running 'Revenge Porn' Website
cold fjord writes "Yahoo reports, 'A California man was arrested on Tuesday on accusations he ran a 'revenge porn' website, one that featured nude pictures of women often posted by jilted or angry ex-lovers ... The San Diego arrest, the latest action by the state to crack down on such websites, comes after California Governor Jerry Brown signed a first-in-the-nation law in October specifically targeting revenge porn. The law defines revenge porn as the posting of private, explicit photos of other people on the Internet to humiliate them. But authorities did not charge 27-year-old Kevin Bollaert under that law, because it is geared to those who post the incriminating pictures and not those who run websites that feature them .... Bollaert's site, which is no longer operational, had featured over 10,000 sexually explicit photos, and he charged women up to $350 each to remove their photos, officials said. ... Bollaert was charged under a California identity theft law that prohibits using identifying information of a person without their permission, and under anti-extortion legislation, according to court documents. Unlike many other revenge porn websites, Bollaert's site had required users post the photo subject's full name, location, age and a link to the person's Facebook profile, the Attorney General's Office said in a statement.'"
Pics or it didn't happen.
No, really, it didn't happen if there aren't any.
*DUCKS*
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
He should turn over all of his submission records, in essence handing over the information on hundreds of men who could be charged for posting the photos. They would probably offer him quite the plea deal if he were to do this.
So he wasn't arrested for running the website at all. He was arrested for blackmail. That headline isn't just misleading, it's factually incorrect. He was arrested because of it, but not for it.
. Bollaert was charged under a California identity theft law that prohibits using identifying information of a person without their permission
Quick, sue the NSA.
Charging ppl $350 a pop to remove their photos for which they did not give permission to post? Yeah, go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200.
Does this mean that I write on the bathroom stall "For a good time call Jenny, 867-5309", along with crudely drawn genitalia, that I now can be prosecuted for identity theft?
So basically he was running an extortion racket?
At the end of the day, you're posting intimate pictures of someone without their permission and without a model release, so I don't have a lot of sympathy for this guy. If the rest of the porn industry needs to keep model releases and the like on file, why wouldn't he?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
How is this any different than a mugshot site? IANAL, but I believe the license of the photograph is owned by the photographer and the subject has very little rights to the photo.
But this form of extortion would not be practicable without the technology involved.
. . . .the older brothers and fathers of the young ladies "exposed" on the website would stop by and have a "chat" with the guy. The site would then go offline very soon thereafter. . . either because he was sufficiently scared, or he was laid up in the hospital, and couldn't pay the hosting bill. . .
I am making the assumption the photos were taken legality and not by trespassing or some illegal means. If this is the case why is this illegal?
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Someone how mugshot websites are able to get away with it.
What mugshot website lets/makes people pay to remove their pictures?
The only one I know of is the one my county runs, and they don't accept bribes.
Well, not for taking your picture off the website, anyway.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
It does seem extremely naive. I'd have thought he'd have the sense to consider that this sounds legally dubious so perhaps it would make sense to get a legal opinion.
He's probably in the clear over copyright.
The problem is that it becomes a clear case of blackmail when he demands money to remove the information.
Mod me down as a troll, but I'm going to call your stupid and asinine statement out. I _want_ to live in a world where my girlfriend, or certain adventurous female friends of mine, feel safe in sending me nudie pics on my phone, and do so because they feel they can without fear of reprisal, revenge, blackmail, or hacking. Because a world like that means that YOU, and every other man out there can also reap that kind of benefit.
What's stupid, is asshats like Kevin Bollaert and others like him slut-shaming women for the lulz, and then profiting via blackmail. When that shit happens, then women don't feel safe in sending nudie pics to men they trust, and we don't get to see them. So I damn well hope they throw the book at him, and I damn well hope we can reverse this trend, because I'd personally like to receive more nudie pics from happy, well-adjusted women with roaring sex drives and a desire for a little exhibitionistic titillation.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
If TFS is correct, then the "identity theft" and anti-blackmail statutes would apply to a mugshot site as well -- if anyone wanted to prosecute them. But, increasingly, criminal law is applied selectively and rather capriciously. I would not expect the legislature or law enforcement to take action that could be construed as affirming the presumption of innocence or the rights of the accused.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
It's Blackmail!
Hello, good evening, and welcome to 'Blackmail'! And to start tonight's program, we go to Preston in Lancashire, and Mrs Betty Teal!
Hello, Mrs Teal!
Now this is for £15 and it's to stop us revealing the name of your lover in Bolton.
So Mrs Teal...if you send us £15 by return post, please, and your husband Trevor, and your lovely children, Diane, Janice and Juliet need never know the name of your lover in Bolton.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I am also NAL, but ownership of pictures is a little more involved than that, I'm pretty sure. Mugshots are already public, hence the mugshot photo sites remaining up. Ownership of pictures depends on the history of the picture. If you take, say, a dick shot of yourself, and send it to your girlfriend, she now legally owns the picture. At least in many states. Which is why the revenge porn laws, aimed at the people posting the photos, were passed, because otherwise posting pictures of your ex that you have legal ownership of is not against the law.
If, for instance, you take a topless photo of yourself, store it on your own computer, which is then hacked into, that's already illegal because of the hacking.
And apparently a lot of the pictures on these sites have been obtained through email hacking, and are therefore not revenge porn as such.
(On the Media covered this all in last week's show, and has an update on their site: http://www.onthemedia.org/
Oh, and as a side issue, on the media has decided to become a civil liberties clearing house, and currently has a little war on with DHS. Worth following.)
But my immediate thought was...good. We have freedom beyond belief but some things are not allowed. CP Someone else's PI.
Your ex is a bitch, but Karma is a bigger bitch. Multiply that by all the users on the web site. He's lucky the law got to him first.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Here's the link to the Arrest Warrant: http://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press_releases/Arrest%20warrant_0.pdf
For deeper comentary, this was on On The Media last week (http://www.onthemedia.org/2013/dec/). My favorite part is when Bollaert said he wouldn't post pics of his Mom or sister because that was gross....
On the Media interviewed Hunter Moore, a different douchebag. Like Bollaert, Hunter Moore ran a revenge porn site, but Moore (apparently) honored removal requests.... then he took down his entire site.
There are lots of them out there. I had a speeding ticket once. So there is a site that lists me as a criminal. It shows up near the top of the list in Google (despite nobody on the planet linking to that page, and no hits on it as far as I can tell). So they SEO the hell out of it to try to smear people's name. But I "could" pay them to take down the page. I'd link to it, but it identifies me more that I like. The "charge" was dismissed, but the ticket still shows up as being given, my two court dates, and the discharge, identifying me as a criminal. I'm not paying them to take down information on a 20 year old speeding ticket (from Texas, where speeding tickets at the time were crimes, misdemeanors, no points, but an actual you-get-a-jury-if-you-want crime). But they are out there.
Learn to love Alaska
Oh, so then why do I get my nude subjects to bother signing a "model release"?
Learn to love Alaska
Define stupidity.
I have an acquaintance that was getting ready to engage in what she thought was a private act with a few 'friends'. As she was getting started, one of them concealed and activated a camera. The resulting pictures now live in perpetuity on the Internet (initially Yahoo groups, but reposted from time to time on 4chan).
Not all pictures are taken with a subject's permission. And some are, but can be misappropriated by other than the intended recipient (someone picks up a phone and uploads them for example).
Have gnu, will travel.
That's not true, or at least it's not legally clear. The photo itself is made by a government agency which automatically makes it public domain, however the subject is a private citizen so it runs afoul of privacy laws which can vary from state to state.
That the person has been charged with a crime is newsworthy in and of itself. That brings the first amendment in to play. To say the web sites cannot post the photos is, legally, the same as saying the New York Times cannot publish the name of the defendant.
This is a bit different though, as it appears the pictures are made by a private person, not a government agency, so the ownership of the photo is retained by the individual who took the shot. Which begs an interesting IP question; if it's a nude shot of a woman taken by her boyfriend, does he own the copyright of the picture, and is therefore legally allowed to publish it if he chooses to do so?
The copyright goes to the person who made the photograph. There are no copyright issues there. There are privacy issues, and right to commercially exploit one's own image issues, both of which are pretty strongly protected in many states.
Aside from criminal issues, as in this case.
Regardless though, that's not this guy's deal. The photos were posted and he charged women money to have them taken down; that's extortion laws, not public domain or IP laws. Mug shot websites can post in the public domain and likely the subject would have to go to court to get it removed and challenge the whole privacy/public domain law conflict.
IP laws are not in play in any way. The difference between mug shot sites and this is that mug shots are part of a criminal arrest, which is a public event and inherently newsworthy. Posing in (or out of) a French maid's costume in one's own bedroom is neither public nor newsworthy. That's why this guy can be arrested for posting these photos and demanding money for taking them down, and a mug shot site (or the New York Times) can't be arrested for posting a mug shot photo and demanding money to take it down (if they were to do so).
Wow, I'd be surprised if any "business" like that hasn't been sued into oblivion for defamation.
Posting a factual public record is one thing; using it as a means of extortion is another all-together. How do they get away with this stuff?
Don't suppose you've tried issuing a DMCA takedown notice in regards to their unlicensed use of your image?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I guess you also believe rape victims were asking for it?
In that situation, the stupidity was engaging in a sexual act with people she didn't know well enough to realize one of them would hide a camera, and in not being aware enough of her surroundings to realize someone was putting/had put up a camera.
Taking pictures and never expecting them to be seen is also stupidity. If you don't want people seeing pictures... don't take them. Don't put yourself into situations where pictures you don't want being seen, can be taken without your knowledge.
I don't have a wife, as gay marriage and polygamy aren't legal in my state. But I teach my daughter to not be so stupid as to put herself into situations where she can be raped and there is no one around to help her. It has worked so far.
Fine; then allow the site to continue on the condition that the operator removes any pictures at the direct request of any person in the pictures
If you shoot me for running a website with pictures of you, then the website will still be up and I won't be in jail, but you will. Not exactly the smartest of strategies for dealing with that imo.
I've found that almost every county in the US I've checked, court records (sometimes including traffic citations) are available online to the general public by the court.
I went looking for information for someone I knew. I was able to pull up records on her in 3 states, including a speeding ticket and a ticket for a burned out taillight.
The problem is, the citations and arrests are easy to find. Digging through the court records to find the final disposition of the case is frequently difficult or impossible. For example, I could find that you were arrested for say possession of drug paraphernalia. The arrest record is usually a booking photo, list of charges, and some personal information. It doesn't say that the "paraphernalia" was actually a cigarette lighter and sandwich bag (with no drugs or residue), and that the charges were dropped.
Despite remaining innocent until proven guilty, a charge or arrest is a conviction in too many people's minds. They believe "If you were arrested, you must have been doing something wrong".
IMHO, court records without convictions, or even with convictions and time served, are far worse than a picture posted by an ex. All the later shows is, ya, you did have intimate relations with someone in the past. By the time you're 20-something, we've all had intimate relations.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
[not] put herself into situations where she can be raped and there is no one around to help her.
You mean like walking down the street? That sure sounds like a fun life.
That the person has been charged with a crime is newsworthy in and of itself. That brings the first amendment in to play.
At least in my country, the right to fundamental justice can trump the freedom of expression (including freedom of the press) right. You just have to convince a judge that publishing certain information can jeopardize your right to a fair trial, eg tainting a jury. Of course the prosecution and other interested parties such as the newspapers lawyers can argue the opposite and after the trial they're usually free to publish, especially in the case of a conviction.
To say the web sites cannot post the photos is, legally, the same as saying the New York Times cannot publish the name of the defendant.
There are probably times when the New York Times can't publish the name of the defendant such as in the case of minors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I wasn't arrested for a traffic ticket, so my image wasn't included, but my name and other personal information is associated with a crime.
Learn to love Alaska
No, we actually talk to our neighbors, and they would offer help if she were raped or grabbed on the street.
I still think you should send them a DMCA letter.
You also might want to check with the TX court system to see if your ticket is even still on their books; there's a fair chance it's been expunged from your record, which would mean that the website is not only defaming your character, they're using libel to do it.
Worst case scenario, they ignore you. Best case, you end up turning the tables and force them to pay you for removing the info. And probably your lawyer, too.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Also I'm not really sure what your point is; rape still happens despite the fact that there are laws against it. So rape kind of backs up my point that women need to stop being stupid, and not rely on laws to protect them.
Ok - so she only gets to walk around alone if she's in your immediate neighbourhood?
Look, I'm sure you're a good parent and everything - but frankly your suggestion that a woman should never be in a position where she can be raped is just victim blaming in disguise. A woman can be raped just about anywhere - up to and including being alone in her house.
Go go wayback machine!
Well it doesn't really make much sense to walk out of my neighborhood - getting into a car would be the preferable method for traveling any further than that. I've taught her to look in the car to see if anyone is hiding inside before entering, not so much for rape evasion but more for mugger evasion as I grew up in a neighborhood where that was common.
Perhaps in your neighborhood people are raped in their houses. In mine people have the courtesy to call the cops when someone breaks into a neighbor's house. I've lived in neighborhoods where they don't, and I sympathize with you. If things change for us then we'll think up a new method for rape evasion. Not being hot isn't really an option and obviously, laws against rape don't work.
So we're still talking about these sites as if all the pictures are from angry exes? The last big one of these sites to go down was found in large part to be made up of photos stolen from hacked email accounts by strangers who enjoyed ruining random women's lives.
How do you know when you know somebody well enough to know that they wouldn't hide a camera? And if somebody is hiding a camera, how is it reasonable to expect the other person to search their surroundings thoroughly enough to discover that the camera is hidden?
Maybe a more reasonable solution is that it should just be illegal to take a picture of somebody in a private situation without their permission. It is not "stupidity" to expect other people to be decent and follow the law.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
Berating a woman after the fact for being "so stupid" as to allow herself to be raped is victim blaming.
Giving a woman the tools and situational awareness to avoid it in the first place is a rational reaction to an extant risk. The culture of "I should be safe to" is a ridiculous denial of reality. If you wander through a bad neighborhood alone at night and get mugged, it's not your fault either, but you avoid being in that situation because it's stupid.
The world is full of sociopaths. It would be a damned shame if one of them conned you out of something of value and you had no recourse.
Bernie Madoff comes to mind as an example.
Have gnu, will travel.
I'll try that. I forgot where it was, and now, when I search my name, I don't see it anymore. It used to be on the first page. It isn't anymore. As long as it's inconvenient for others to find, that's ok with me. I just don't like the idea of a prospetive employer finding bad stuff so easily.
Learn to love Alaska
This is an awfully peculiar discussion.
I'm very pleased to hear that your neighbourhood is crime-free to the extent that you are able to teach your child that... wait, you're teaching her to pretty much be afraid wherever she is. Look inside the car before you get in, in case there's a mugger in there? Are you serious?
Anyway, my neighbourhood is fine thanks. My point is a more general one, and isn't related to where I live or to where you live. It's related to the statement that you feel it necessary to teach someone that they should never put themselves in a position where they can be attacked. I do not see how it is possible to achieve that, and further I believe that it generates an unnecessary climate of fear around everything that person does.
But I really don't want to argue with you about this - I just wanted to make the point that it is never the fault of the victim under any circumstances. It is always the responsibility of the attacker. Always. And none of us, male or female, should ever feel that we have to live in fear just because we could be raped or attacked. And in the original article, the lady in question should have an expectation of privacy when in private, and people that secretly film others and then publish the footage should be punished as harshly as the law allows. And arguing that it was her fault because she put herself in that position is nothing more than victim blaming.
Never a good business plan, if you do it in public.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I posted a naked picture of myself online.
Occasionally I send the URL to people that haven't seen it before just to shock them. They ALWAYS view it, even though I clearly indicate that it's me, it's naked, and it's a file with 'naked' in the filename.
However, someone posts my full name, address, pictures and other details and I don't like it.. I'll use the DPA against them.
This is one reason I don't exist on Facebook. It's rather lovely.
With this law we wouldn't have Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian. On the other hand - this is a good law.