To See or Not to See...

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Restraining order extended on Colin Farrell sex tape

For now, the answer for Colin Farrell is "NO."

Here's my thinking on the marketing of sex tapes - for celebrities or for anyone else. In order to market anything depicting a sexual act the distributor should be required to have signed releases from *ALL* participants - not just the ones with an ax to grind or a dollar to chase.

I'm not even going to talk about the wisdom of recording such an event, but it goes on all the time and it's not just celebrities who are getting embarrassed by them. While a little confession may be good for the soul, no one deserves to have that sort of thing broadcast without their consent.

I'm not generally in favor of additional laws, but I think something similar to what I'm proposing would be fair. Adult film companies are already required to maintain such records. Why should distributors of "amateur" recordings get held to a lower standard when the risk of violating someone's privacy is even higher for those kinds of videos?

If the distributors won't take the step voluntarily, then maybe it's time for the legislators to step in...