Hulk Hogan awarded payout over Gawker sex tapes

Good for him.

I think Jerry "Tycho" Holkins expresses best how I feel about Gawker in this whole affair.

https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2016/03/14/the-didact...

Before anyone goes on a "Gawker is a terrible site, they deserve it" tangent, keep in mind that this does set precedent for other individuals to sue other media companies for massive amounts of money, which could be another problem for an already-struggling ecosystem. (Although in fairness, this incident is particularly egregious, especially as they disobeyed a judge's order to take down the video)

At best this is an argument for tort reform*. Gawker's actions here are not defensible.

Edit: meaning improved protections against baseless lawsuits that could be damaging regardless of their merit. The simple way to protect your news company from being sued for releasing leaked sex tapes is to simply not release leaked sex tapes, which I think will be the major takeaway from this case.

From a legal perspective, this case only sets precedent in Florida (it was tried at the state not federal level) unless it manages to worm its way up to the Supreme Court and get heard. While there are less important states it could have been heard in, there are also considerably more important states where the precedent could be used to greater impact. I'm undecided on whether that's good or bad.

Financially speaking, the jury has objectively awarded Hogan a ton of money ($15mm more than he was seeking even) -- and punitive damages have not even been decided yet! It's not inconceivable that the total amount will approach Gawker's entire net worth. But that isn't how damages are decided -- something like this can clearly have a considerable negative lasting impact on the ability to earn in the future, and I think it's clear in this case that Hogan has been impacted in this way. I'm sure that played into the jury's math. Without knowing more about their deliberations, I think it's too early to say if they erred on the high side.

From the perspective of media companies starting to worry about being torn to shreds for posting this sort of thing, all I can say is "good". Freedom of speech is extremely important. A free press is extremely important. Posting an illegally obtained sex tape and then further refusing to remove it is not a victory for either, it is sleaziness and pandering to the lowest denominator of society to make a buck.

The best way to combat that tendency of some parts of the media is to make the buck not worth grabbing -- when you risk having to pay it back ten times over.

Ugh, no thank you. I've liked some of Jerry's opinion pieces in the past, but I think he's way off the mark here, especially with this:

> The causes they enunciate are tarnished, just for being in their mouths.

That's the kind of thinking that gets you atrocious policy, especially in the judicial sphere. As I said below, people who want bad to enshrine bad precedent will pick the most unsympathetic targets in the courts in order to get it - including law enforcement (actually, especially law enforcement. Why isn't Apple helping the FBI stop terrorists???)

The courts sometimes see through this trick. Did you know that your Miranda rights exist because the Supreme Court threw out the conviction of a scumbag who had, indisputably, robbed and raped a mentally handicapped girl? It's sad that they didn't this time though, and that apparently the vox populi didn't either.