Novelchick: It's Funny Because Stupid Is Illegal This Time

From the wonderful files of The Smoking Gun comes this little gem. It's ten pages long but WELL worth the read if you have time to pop over to the website and read the entire thing. I've trimmed down the legal docs for you to the ones that are absolutely mind blowing. Here we have a company that thought that it could victimize a young girl, lie about it and no one would know the difference. Lara is to applauded for standing up for herself and hiring a smart attorney. The back of the video box is graphic and you do not want your children seeing it. I put in on here simply to illustrate what her image (at age fourteen) was being used to sell. The NovelChick Staff are not looking to become an HBO 'documentary' subject and we are not moving in the direction of becoming a porn site.

Teen Sues Over XXX-Video "Debut"

British student claims self-portrait hijacked by porn distributors

JULY 31--A British teenager whose self-portrait somehow ended up on the cover of a hardcore video has filed a lawsuit against the film's distributors, claiming that they have left the impression that she is involved in the porno industry. In a copyright lawsuit filed today in U.S. District Court in Tampa, Florida, Lara Jade Coton, 18, charges that her photo--which was taken when she was just 14--has appeared on the cover of "Body Magic," a 1982 film that was recently reissued. The image of Coton, now a college student, shows her wearing a shoulder-baring dress and a top hat. The photo, which Coton titled "No Way Out," was lifted from her web site by the artist who designed the DVD cover of "Body Magic," which is described on its cover as having received Hustler magazine's "highest rating." The movie's main character is a young fashion photographer named Laura.

The DVD's front and back covers can be found below, while Coton's self-portrait can be seen above. In her lawsuit, Coton recounts contacting one of the film's distributors earlier this year after discovering her image on the porno box. Her request for compensation was brusquely rejected by one of the film's distributors, who wrote, "Nice try toots. We are still going to remove you from the art, not because of your claim but let's face it your picture means very little to the film."

Start reading at the arrow.

Read 24. Can you imagine having some random guy come up to you in college and say, oh aren't you the chick on that hardcore box?

And in paragraph 28 we see that stupid is, in fact, illegal and costly.
I especially enjoyed her attorney's summation of that email.

And in 29 we see that the photo supposedly on a public domain bore a watermark.

I'm guessing that they never suspected this email would be used as court evidence since they used house whole instead of household. That and the generally assy comments which apparently say it's her FAULT the DVD bombed.

Check the date in 31 when she ws allegedly removed from all DVD covers.

According to 38 they continued to use her image even after they knew that she was 14 at the time.

Check the date when her legal team ordered and recieved a copy of the DVD they got from one of the distributors who had allegedly removed it from their inventory in February.