Michaels v. Internet Entertainment Group, Inc.

In 1994, a well-known musician and rock star, Bret Michaels (plaintiff) and a celebrity actress, Pamela Anderson Lee (plaintiff) made a videotape of themselves having sex at home (the tape). In 1997, a company that distributed adult-entertainment material through a subscription service, Internet Entertainment Group, Inc. (IEG) (defendant) contacted Michaels, claiming to have acquired the tape and necessary rights to publish it. Using Michaels’s and Lee’s names and likenesses to market the tape, IEG planned to publish the tape through its subscription service, for which customers paid $14.95 per month. Michaels advised IEG to cease and desist further attempts to disseminate the tape. Michaels further registered the tape for copyright protection and sued IEG, alleging violation of his privacy and publicity rights. Lee intervened in the case. The court entered a temporary restraining order prohibiting IEG from disseminating (“promoting, marketing, and advertising”) the tape and scheduled a hearing for a preliminary injunction. While the court proceedings were underway, a 148-second clip of the tape was apparently posted on the internet. IEG made various arguments in opposition to a preliminary injunction, including that the tape was newsworthy, or relatedly, that Michaels’s and Lee’s sexual relations were not private on account of their public roles or the tape’s partial dissemination.