Verne Troyer Sex Tape Lawsuit

The biggest problem with the astroturfing style of marketing is that it makes everyone very skeptical of everything; it makes it very difficult to believe in anything. If a star willingly gets naked on camera, there will be some puritanical types who will think ill of them for it. Yet most people who enjoy being in the spotlight and being immortalized have a hankering to be in the spotlight and be immortalized even when they are, ya know, doing it. I have frequently run into famous people who want me and Forrest Black to shoot artistic nudes of them, but who do not want anyone to see the finished work. As an artist, it is important to me that people actually see what I create, so we have, to date, declined private commissions of this sort. A combination of following the various sex tape scandals, and my own personal conversations with people who wanted to get naked on camera without the social repercussions, has lead me to assume that most sex tapes are released with the knowledge and consent of the parties involved. That way, they can get the erotic attention and the victim sympathy.

The problem with this is that some people actually want their private lives to be, ya know, private. I have come to believe that actor Verne Troyer genuinely feels his privacy is being invaded with the current sex tape clip making the rounds and, at the request of his manager, I am having the honestly barely PG-rated clip removed from BlueBlood.net.

Late this evening, I received an email from someone named Ray Hughes who said that Verne Troyer was his client and who attached a PDF of what appear to be court documents pertaining to a temporary restraining order or TRO. A TRO is something issued by a judge to stop something potentially damaging from continuing while the court determines whether that thing is actually damaging. I couldn’t find any web references connecting anyone named Ray Hughes to Verne Troyer and I actually couldn’t find anyone named Ray Hughes listed as an attorney in Los Angeles. I could easily have blown it off until Monday and spent the evening watching a canceled science fiction series on DVD with pals, as planned. Instead, I read the court documents, which seem to be from a suit against Kevin Blatt, Sugar DVD, and TMZ and sent the following email back:

Hello Ray,

Although I may have shaken Kevin Blatt’s hand at a party, it could have been his brother’s hand, as I sometimes get the Blatt siblings confused. That’s as close as I’ve gotten to Kevin Blatt, TMZ, or SugarDVD, so I don’t think I could easily be characterized as falling under the category of agents, servants, employees, officers, directors, representatives, attorneys, successors, or assigns of Kevin Blatt, TMZ, or SugarDVD, or those acting in concert with them. The video I have displayed is embed code from YouTube which runs off of the YouTube site. Beats me whether the TRO would apply to my situation or not and 10 o’ clock on a Friday night is not the ideal time to get legal advice.

Nonetheless, acknowledging that I have not had benefit of legal counsel and admitting no wrongdoing and waiving no rights I may have, I will express my initial gut response to your request. I believe that my article on BlueBlood.net was respectful to Verne Troyer. It was certainly intended to be respectful of him and his accomplishments. If Verne Troyer genuinely feels his privacy was invaded, I will cause the references you request to be removed and issue an apology. It is difficult, in today’s virally-oriented marketing environment, to ascertain who truly wishes to keep their sex life private and who deliberately released their naked ass to the public and just pretends concern so no one dings them for being naughty.

I guess it might be possible to figure out contact information to verify via the court on Monday, but, if you could please forward me your response from an email for a recognized law firm before then, my opinion, pre-counsel, is that I can probably accept that as sufficient proof that Verne Troyer is truly concerned about invasion of his privacy. When you email me from an official email address, which I’m assuming you will, can you please advise me whether it is the YouTube video clip embed or the link to TMZ or both which you wish to have removed.

Best, Amelia G
https://www.blueblood.net

Ray Hughes emailed me back a hour later, explained that he was Verne Troyer’s manager (not attorney as I’d assumed) and that he always did business from his Gmail account, but he did CC an email which appeared to be for a Tracy B. Rane at McPherson & Associates, although he indicated that he’d just as soon not involve the attorney. I guess Verne Troyer’s lawyers don’t work on the weekend either. However, the court documents attachment references McPherson & Associates as where to send whiny-ass reasons why it is vital to the public interest to be able to keep naughty Verne Troyer video live on the interwebs. Verne Troyer is listed on the McPherson & Associates web site as a client. I popped over to TMZ to see if they had any mention that they were, ya know, being sued and found the following:

Verne Troyer has filed a $20 million lawsuit, claiming TMZ violated his rights by publishing and airing portions of his sex tape.

In the suit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in downtown L.A., Troyer claims TMZ violated his privacy rights and infringed on his copyright and trademark by running portions of the tape on TMZ TV and TMZ.com. He also alleges TMZ violated his right of publicity and misappropriated his name and likeness.

Troyer says the tape was stolen and ended up in the hands of Kevin Blatt, the guy who distributed “One Night in Paris.” Blatt is also named as a defendant.

In addition to damages, Troyer wants an injunction prohibiting further dissemination of the video.

Calls to TMZ were not returned.

I know that a lot of people are inclined to flip any papparazzi from TMZ the bird and nobody wants to pick up the phone to give TMZ a comment. Apparently, TMZ won’t even answer a press query from TMZ.

So anyway, the sex tape video clip has been removed and my sincere apologies to Verne Troyer for any distress my post may have contributed to. I want to be clear that I may not be legally required to remove the clip embed and I am definitely not legally required by any law or settlement to apologize for posting the video. I want to apologize because I feel very strongly that someone who wants their privacy should be allowed to have it, unless there is news which is important to the public interest. It is rarely vital to the public interest that we all be able to watch other people have sex. Not that watching other people have sex can’t be perfectly entertaining, when all parties consent.

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Posted by Amelia G on June 28, 2008. Filed under Blue Blood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry