Sex, Lawsuits and Celebrities Caught on Tape

By LOLA OGUNNAIKE

TWO years ago Red Light District, a little known video company in California, hit the jackpot when it landed distribution rights to the Paris Hilton sex tape, an explicit bedroom video shot by a former boyfriend. The DVD has sold some 600,000 copies, establishing Red Light District as the leading player in a lucrative niche of the pornography industry: a purveyor of explicit videos of famous people, sold to an eager public, often over the vehement objections of the participants.

Kevork Djansezian/Associated Press

A sex tape featuring Paris Hilton is on sale. 

Ms. Hilton tried to stop distribution of the tape, although its notoriety paradoxically catapulted her to an even higher orbit of fame, establishing her as a kind of postmodern celebrity, leading to perfume deals, a memoir and the covers of Vanity Fair and W.

For its part Red Light District is hoping for a follow-up hit with a new celebrity sex tape featuring two rock stars, Kid Rock and Scott Stapp, who is the former front man of a Christian rock group, Creed. David Joseph, the president of Red Light, predicts he could sell 300,000 to 400,000 copies of the tape at $20 to $24 wholesale.

"Everybody is going to want to see what these guys' lives are really like when they're on the road with the groupies," he said.

But for now he can't sell it. On Feb. 28 a federal judge ordered Red Light to shut down Web sites showing snippets of the film in response to a lawsuit brought by Kid Rock.

"We believe that this tape was a private tape, improperly obtained," said William H. Horton, Kid Rock's lawyer, in an interview. "And we intend to keep it private." He added, "We're not hankering for a license agreement. We don't want any money."

After two additional lawsuits were filed against Red Light last week — by Mr. Stapp and a woman appearing on the tape, which shows the two stars receiving oral sex in a motor home after a concert in 1999 — Red Light says it will not press its case in the courts, but will try to negotiate with those featured in the tape for the rights to sell it.

Whatever the resolution of this conflict, gone are the days when a sex tape — which might seem the most embarrassing of disclosures — automatically destroys a celebrity's career. Although the actor Rob Lowe became a pariah in Hollywood in the 1980's when he taped himself having sex with two women, one a minor, amateur sex tapes today seem to juice up careers, at least for celebrities who already have a certain cheese factor.

Besides Ms. Hilton, there is Pamela Anderson, whose fame as a B-list actress and tabloid favorite seemed to accelerate when an explicit tape of her having sex with her husband, the rocker Tommy Lee, was shown on the Internet in 1997, despite the couple's attempts to suppress it in court.

In late 2004 a former pro wrestling star named Chyna Doll and her husband actually approached Red Light District to distribute their amateur sex tape. More than 100,000 copies have sold, the company says, with its stars sharing the profits. Chyna Doll, whose real name is Joanne Laurer, got a career boost after the DVD's release when she was cast on the popular VH1 reality show "The Surreal Life."

Joe Levy, the executive editor of Rolling Stone, which covered the brouhaha over the Rob Lowe tape in the 80's, said, "The huge difference between nearly 20 years ago and now is that pornography is more easily available, therefore there is far less of a stigma attached to it."

Mr. Levy added: "In this day and age everyone has their own video camera and is free to use it in whatever manner they desire. The more people that make these tapes for their own pleasure, the less they think it horrifying that others have done so too."

Celebrity sex tapes surface with such regularity that cynics question whether the stars themselves may be complicit, despite their efforts to suppress them in court, because of the publicity they bring. Although he is suing Red Light to keep his tape out of public hands, Kid Rock told The Associated Press this month: "What perfect timing. I got a record coming up."

In another case a judge in Los Angeles ruled last week that the actor Colin Farrell could proceed with a lawsuit to stop a former girlfriend from selling a sex tape they made in 2003. Mr. Farrell, who stars in the soon-to-be-released film "Miami Vice," asserts that the 15-minute hard-core bedroom tape will significantly damage his reputation.

His former girlfriend, Nicole Narain, who was Playboy's Miss January 2002, wants to market the tape through an Internet company, arguing she has that right as its "co-creator."

According to a document posted on the Web by The Smoking Gun, an investigative site, last week, the would-be distributor of the tape is promising to pay Ms. Narain $3 million.

Questions surround the dealings that move a celebrity sex tape from camera to middleman to distributor to the public. How does a tape of the most intimate and private acts end up being sold to hundreds of thousands of viewers, often over the objections of the participants?

Although the $10 billion-a-year pornography industry is increasingly mainstream, how legitimate is Red Light's shadowy corner of the business?

Mr. Joseph said all his dealings have been on the up and up. "Of course I ask them how they get it and make sure it's not stolen," he said, referring to the peddlers of celebrity sex tapes.

For the Paris Hilton tape Mr. Joseph said he struck a deal with Rick Salomon, its co-star, who had been selling the tape himself for $50 on a Web site. Mr. Joseph said he agreed to give nearly 50 percent of the distribution profits to Mr. Salomon, although he declined to name a figure. (The tape won an award from a porn industry trade group for Top Selling Title of the Year in 2005.)

Ms. Hilton, who was 19 at the time the tape was made, sued a Panama-based Internet company that was distributing clips of the tape, citing a violation of privacy and emotional distress, a suit she eventually dropped. But she has never sued Mr. Salomon or Red Light District. In an interview last year, Ms. Hilton's lawyer, Peter Lopez, said that she receives profits from the tape.

Had she sued Mr. Salomon or Red Light District, Ms. Hilton may have had a case, according to some legal experts.

"Mr. Salomon may have been the creator and may have owned the copyright to the tape, but if Ms. Hilton had a reasonable expectation that this tape of her intimate behavior with him would remain between the two of them, she might well have a viable claim against him for invasion of privacy," said Kevin Goering, a partner and First Amendment lawyer at the firm Sheppard Mullin.

In the case of the Kid Rock and Scott Stapp tape, a third person shot it and therefore owns the copyright, Ray Tamaddon, a lawyer for Red Light District, argued. "We obtained the tape from the rightful owner," he said. "There is no doubt about that in our minds."

Mr. Joseph said he learned that the third party — whose identity he will not disclose — was planning to put the tape online for free, but he persuaded him to sell it instead, he said. Mr. Horton, Kid Rock's lawyer, maintains that the tape belongs to Mr. Stapp. "It is my understanding that it has been in his possession for the past seven years and recently came up missing," he said.

Mr. Joseph, 37, seems unfazed by the obstacles to the distribution of the tape; experience has shown him that celebrities often allow the sale of sex tapes for the right price. Mr. Tamaddon said Red Light would not fight the lawsuits, but he added, "We are continuing our negotiations, and they are aware that we're willing to enter into an agreement with them."

In the porn world Red Light District has made its name with so-called gonzo pornography. "Gonzo is the hard-core stuff — straight to the point, no music," Mr. Joseph explained during a tour of his headquarters, a large building in Chatsworth, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb.

He led the way through Red Light's warehouse, a rambling expanse that resembles a Home Depot. Thousands of tapes and DVD's with titles like "Tease Me, Please Me" and "Fresh New Faces" were stacked neatly on shelves. Mr. Joseph pointed to cardboard boxes filled with Ms. Hilton's tape. "We keep 50,000 to 60,000 of those on hand because they're still selling," he said.

Mr. Joseph, a married father of two, said he rarely watches his product. "There's not one porno tape in my house or a porno magazine," he said. "I can count on one hand the number of Playboys I've looked at in my life. I'd rather watch Discovery Channel or Sports Center."

A competitor of his, Patrick Collins, the founder of Elegant Angel, said that while he is in the business "because I like porn," Mr. Joseph "could really care less about porn in general." He added, "David likes the art of the deal."

Deals weren't exactly on Mr. Joseph's mind that day, when, with the click of a button, the Kid Rock-Scott Stapp tape appeared on his office computer screen. The action, as advertised, is hard-core.
"Man, I should've been a rock star," Mr. Joseph said as he watched Mr. Rock autograph one woman's breast with a black marker. "I'm in the totally wrong business."

Even if he never gets a chance to sell the video. Mr. Joseph is already chasing another celebrity tape. He would not name names, but did drop hints. "It's a girl," he said, smiling mischievously, "and she's in the music business."