
Once a single, sexually explicit image is posted, the uploader loses control of the image. The damage caused by revenge porn is inextricably tied to the nature of the Internet. Legal Protection For Revenge Porn: The Communications Decency Act Section 230 Finally, Part IV outlines why copyright functions as a solution to the revenge porn problem.
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In Part III, I explain why existing and proposed legislation presents problems for both victims and free speech.


Part II discusses why harassment, stalking and privacy laws are often inadequate means of fighting revenge porn. In Part I, I examine how Section 230 protects revenge porn traffickers, like IsAnyoneUp, from liability. Thus, it is the most efficient and predictable means of protecting victims of revenge porn. While not a perfect solution, copyright requires no amendments to Section 230, no reinterpretation of settled doctrine, no abridgment of free speech rights and no new criminal laws. For this portion of victims, copyright law can be used to combat revenge porn. A survey of 864 revenge porn victims revealed that more than eighty percent of revenge porn images are “selfies,” meaning that the author and the subject are the same. Copyright establishes a uniform method for revenge porn victims to remove their images, target websites that refuse to comply with takedown notices and, in some cases, receive monetary damages. However, there is already a federal law that provides all of these remedies: copyright law. Some activists argue that there are only two possible solutions: amend Section 230 to create liability for ISPs or pass new laws with hefty penalties for revenge porn uploaders and traffickers. Of the states with legislation expressly applicable to revenge porn, none provide such a radical remedy. Instead, victims’ primary goal is to have the images removed as quickly as possible, with the tort remedies coming into play as threats for non-compliance with an order to remove the images in question. To further complicate matters, victims are not looking solely for injunctive relief, civil penalties, or monetary damages, which are the remedies available under tort law. Because websites are afforded a great deal of legal protection under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects interactive service providers (“ISPs”) from liability for user-generated content, tort actions against the websites that traffic in revenge porn are unlikely to succeed.

Additionally, tort law is ill equipped to address the problem of revenge porn. Victims’ attempts to use harassment, stalking and privacy laws to punish uploaders and remove images are often met with apathy from local police. This paper defines revenge porn in terms of its content, not distribution: Revenge porn refers to sexually explicit images that are publicly shared online without the consent of the pictured individual. The images hosted by websites like IsAnyoneUp are often referred to as “revenge porn.” Defining revenge porn, however, is difficult – journalists and activists, lawyers and pundits have used the term revenge porn to refer to all manner of non-consensual pornography, including images captured without a victim’s knowledge, images of a victim’s face transposed on a sexually explicit body, hacked images, and images uploaded by jaded ex-lovers. The victims featured on revenge porn websites frequently receive solicitations over social media, lose their jobs, or live in fear that friends, lovers or employers will discover the images. Any person who shares intimate images with a partner is Schrdinger’s victim: according to one survey, one in ten former partners threaten to post sexually explicit images of their exes online and an estimated sixty percent of those follow through.

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IsAnyoneUp featured more than nude images: Moore often included information about the individuals whose images were posted on the site, including full names, social media accounts, and other personal, identifying information. By twenty-seven, Moore-the “most hated person on the Internet” -was indicted for identity theft and conspiring to hack into e-mail accounts to obtain nude photographs to feature on his website. Soon after, IsAnyoneUp hit more than 500 million page views and Moore netted more than $13,000 a month in advertising revenue and hired a lawyer, public relations consultant, server administrator, and two security specialists. But after a few months, Moore dramatically changed his business model: he began allowing anyone to submit sexually explicit images to the website. – Sir Francis Bacon, from Essays Civil and Moral IntroductionĪt twenty-five, Hunter Moore started the website IsAnyoneUp, where Moore posted sexually explicit photographs of the young women he met at parties. “Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.”
