Revenge Porn Victim Wins Over $6 Million In Lawsuit Settlement Against Ex

A California woman got a massive payout from revenge a porn case that took years to reach its conclusion, the New York Times reported. The victim, whose identity was redacted and referred to simply as Jane Doe in court documents, got a staggering $6.4 million from copyright violations and emotional distress caused by her ex-partner’s misdeeds.

Revenge porn is the non-consensual sharing of explicit images of another person with the intent to cause that other person some kind of harm, which is exactly what the woman’s ex, David K. Elam, was accused of doing in the lawsuit. Per Mashable, Elam impersonated Doe on various online dating services with her real name and private photos of her after the two broke up in 2013.

He allegedly went as far as to post her home address online, opening her up to sexual solicitation and potential stalking from unwanted visitors. Elam neither denied or addressed these claims in court, but on April 4, the United States District Court in California rewarded Doe with the large sum of money for the harm caused by Elam’s actions.

That judgment came four years after the Cyber Civil Rights Legal Project picked up the case as one of its first legal efforts to battle the scourge of revenge porn. Doe was partially able to win the case on the grounds that sharing private images violated the copyright she held over the images since she took them.

Copyright law is one of a few different venues to legal victory in revenge porn cases, per WIthout My Consent. Most states have laws on the books to give victims some kind of protection against revenge porn, but they are all different and not always comprehensive.

In Doe’s case, only $450,000 of the settlement came from the copyright infringement. Three million dollars came from damages stemming from stalking and impersonation, while the other $3 million came from emotional trauma.