I have a friend with a complete asshole for a new boyfriend. She was in the process of getting ready to dump him for good when he revealed that he had secretly taken video of them in bed.
He claims that they (he) can make money posting it to some porn site and is whining that she is being a prude to refuse to let him do that. She is horrified and angry beyond belief and is trying to figure out how to stop the vid from being posted online. If she dumps him, she’s worried he’ll post it out of either revenge, malice or greed.
I’m guessing taping her without her consent is akin to illegal wiretapping or something like that. True?
What would be the best course of action for her to take now?
Wire tapping/recording depends on the state. In Virginia, only one party needs to have consent, which would be him. However, the selling of the video would be defamation? We need a real lawyer, not a sea lawyer such as myself.
You can call up the police and file a police report. That will get the ball rolling and probably fuck him.
No legit porn site is going to take an unsolicited video, especially one without model releases and proof of ID for everyone in the video. So he’s not going to make money off it.
If it was filmed in a two-party consent state, then it violates that law, I believe, but IANAL. I don’t know about a one-party consent state.
My money is on the video not existing (what, she didn’t notice the camera and tripod?), or being such low quality that you can’t see anything (if the camera was hidden). It’s probably an ill-thought out ploy to keep her from dumping him.
He had a video camera set up and “jokingly” suggested taking video. She said “hell no” and he told her he had turned it off. But he didn’t, and recorded them without her knowing.
Agree that the vid quality is probably crap (she hasn’t seen it).
There may be no such video, and he may never post it. Your friend can contact the local authorities to find out what laws apply and then remind him of the consequences.
There are porn sites which claim to have revenge porn, but those are always with signed consent (meaning fake). yellowjacketcoder is right. The sites won’t touch it, lest they open themselves up to getting the bejeezus sued out of them.
I think he’s bluffing. There is no tape. Even if there is a tape, there is a really good chance that no viewer would be able to identify the people on the tape.
Even if there is a tape, and you can see something and can see her face on it…so what? Suppose he submits with forged consent and some site outs it up. Its not like these are mainstream or easy to find. Its a niche market. It would be kinda like being in a low budget direct-to-video C movie horror flick. Very few will ever see it, and no one will remember it.
I wouldn’t be so sure there isn’t a video. It’s trivially easy to put the phone down somewhere and hit ‘Record’. It seems like something a low-life would do.
And if he uploads it, I bet he would tell all his friends “Hey, check out my ex in this porn link.” So even though it’s unlikely someone would randomly stumble upon the link and recognize her, it’s highly likely that all her friends will find out about it because he’ll share the link with them.
I seem to recall it being illegal to record video and audio together without 3rd party consent, but I’m not sure where I heard that. I think video-only can be done, but I’m not sure about recording in someone else’s house.
It varies dramatically by jurisdiction and circumstances. Consult a lawyer licensed to practice in your jurisdiction - all other advice is going to be useless.
Is there any blackmail angles to be worked? One would think that just making such a threat could constitute an illegal act. Though obviously, it would be hard to prove unless he emailed/texted it in plain words.
Well, the thread is titled “Lover films sex w/o my consent…”.
First thing? File a police report. Get it on record somewhere, even if it’s just the threat. They can then tell you if it’s worth the time and money to consult an attorney.