Page 5 - Gawker
P. 5
The Case
Hogan began his legal battle against
Gawker Media in 2012, after the
organization's flagship site
published a sex tape of the wrestler and a friend's wife.
Hogan was represented by Charles Harder, a prominent Los
Angeles-based lawyer who filed two invasion-of-privacy
lawsuits on behalf of Hogan: one in state court, against
Bubba the Love Sponge and his wife, Heather who had
secretly videoed Hogan having sex with Heather; the other
in federal court, against Gawker, Denton, and Daulerio.
Bubba quickly settled with Hogan. The financial terms of
which were never disclosed, but, as part of the deal, Bubba
gave Hogan control of the copyright of the sex tape.
That allowed Hogan to add a claim of copyright
infringement against Gawker for publishing the tape without
his permission, and to demand that the tape be removed
from the Web site.
November 14, 2012, saw a federal judge in Tampa, gave
Gawker a victory when he denied Hogan’s request that the
Web site hosting the sex tape should take it down saying
that the:
