Kemo
03-03-2016, 05:06 PM
-D53kCsSHzw
On Monday, Gawker filed a motion to exclude deposition testimony of a corporate representative of MindGeek during the trial in Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against them, which starts this coming Monday, March 7th. MindGeek is the company behind a ton of different pornographic websites, including many of the “YouTube of porn” types of websites. The reason this all came up is because Hogan, is trying to determine the damages that he should be awarded if he prevails over Gawker at trial, is arguing that for each person who viewed Gawker’s “highlight reel” of the video of him and Heather Cole, he should get the “standard price to access and view” a celebrity sex video. To determine this amount, Hogan will be calling Shanti Shunn, an e-commerce expert, as a witness who will testify that the video was viewed 4.46 million times and that the views should be multiplied by the $4.95 fee to view Vivid Video’s celebrity sex website.
In a deposition, Shunn conceded that he had no experience with the pornography business and the he wasn’t aware that Vivid puts its celebrity videos on PornHub (one of MindGeek’s free sites) for free viewing. Part of Shunn’s expert report was that to see Vivid’s celebrity videos, they HAD to pay at least $4.95, so Gawker deposed MindGeek via corporate designee Brett Goldenberg just 13 days ago on February 18th. Goldenberg’s role was to establish that an explicit five minute video of Kim Kardashian and Ray J, which is owned by Vivid, had been legally streamed 105,771,119 times via the official “Vivid Celebs” PornHub channel as of March 18, 2015. The inference, of course, is that Shunn’s method of calculating damages for Hogan isn’t valid.
In the same deposition of Goldberg, Hogan’s lawyers tried to get information about what type of revenue is generated by videos being viewed at PornHub, though the MindGeek lawyer shut down a lot of that questioning. They also tried to get Goldenberg to answer questions about the PornHub terms of use, user-uploaded videos requiring the consent of everyone appearing in them, etc. to try to bolster the privacy claims at the center of their case.
Hogan’s side is trying to get the deposition thrown out, but Gawker argues that they were granted approval to take the deposition by the judge, that they stayed within the agreed parameters, and that there’s no reason for Hogan’s motion to be granted. The conclusion of Gawker’s pleading reads as follows:
Plaintiff has failed to offer any meaningful basis for the Court to revisit its July 2015 ruling that Defendants could secure testimony from MindGeek that celebrity sex tapes can be viewed for free at PomHub in light of the expert testimony proffered by Plaintiffs expert that a person would need to pay at least $4.95 to watch those tapes. Moreover, nothing about Mr. Goldenberg’s deposition presents the compelling circumstances to warrant the drastic remedy of excluding his testimony.
On Monday, Gawker filed a motion to exclude deposition testimony of a corporate representative of MindGeek during the trial in Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against them, which starts this coming Monday, March 7th. MindGeek is the company behind a ton of different pornographic websites, including many of the “YouTube of porn” types of websites. The reason this all came up is because Hogan, is trying to determine the damages that he should be awarded if he prevails over Gawker at trial, is arguing that for each person who viewed Gawker’s “highlight reel” of the video of him and Heather Cole, he should get the “standard price to access and view” a celebrity sex video. To determine this amount, Hogan will be calling Shanti Shunn, an e-commerce expert, as a witness who will testify that the video was viewed 4.46 million times and that the views should be multiplied by the $4.95 fee to view Vivid Video’s celebrity sex website.
In a deposition, Shunn conceded that he had no experience with the pornography business and the he wasn’t aware that Vivid puts its celebrity videos on PornHub (one of MindGeek’s free sites) for free viewing. Part of Shunn’s expert report was that to see Vivid’s celebrity videos, they HAD to pay at least $4.95, so Gawker deposed MindGeek via corporate designee Brett Goldenberg just 13 days ago on February 18th. Goldenberg’s role was to establish that an explicit five minute video of Kim Kardashian and Ray J, which is owned by Vivid, had been legally streamed 105,771,119 times via the official “Vivid Celebs” PornHub channel as of March 18, 2015. The inference, of course, is that Shunn’s method of calculating damages for Hogan isn’t valid.
In the same deposition of Goldberg, Hogan’s lawyers tried to get information about what type of revenue is generated by videos being viewed at PornHub, though the MindGeek lawyer shut down a lot of that questioning. They also tried to get Goldenberg to answer questions about the PornHub terms of use, user-uploaded videos requiring the consent of everyone appearing in them, etc. to try to bolster the privacy claims at the center of their case.
Hogan’s side is trying to get the deposition thrown out, but Gawker argues that they were granted approval to take the deposition by the judge, that they stayed within the agreed parameters, and that there’s no reason for Hogan’s motion to be granted. The conclusion of Gawker’s pleading reads as follows:
Plaintiff has failed to offer any meaningful basis for the Court to revisit its July 2015 ruling that Defendants could secure testimony from MindGeek that celebrity sex tapes can be viewed for free at PomHub in light of the expert testimony proffered by Plaintiffs expert that a person would need to pay at least $4.95 to watch those tapes. Moreover, nothing about Mr. Goldenberg’s deposition presents the compelling circumstances to warrant the drastic remedy of excluding his testimony.