Hulk Hogan Gawker: Judge Orders Gawker To Remove Sex Tape Materials; Site Refuses

Last week, a judge in Pinellas County, Florida ordered the website Gawker to take down a one-minute excerpt of a 30-minute video - and all excerpts, clips, photos and transcripts related to the video - in which Hulk Hogan (real name Terry Gene Bollea) appears having sex with a woman rumored to be the ex-wife of a friend. Gawker complied with the request to take down the video, but refuses to remove a 1,400 word essay by editor A.J. Daulerio in which Daulerio describes what the sex tape depicts and muses about watching celebrity sex tapes. In refusing to comply, Gawker says the judge's ruling is "grossly unconstitutional".

When Gawker originally posted the excerpt of the sex tape in October, according to the Hollywood Reporter, the former professional wrestler and reality television star who goes by the stage name Hulk Hogan filed a $100 million lawsuit in federal court against the website. The judge in the case did not order Gawker to remove the tape, saying that it was "in conjunction with the news reporting function" and that the "factual finding supports a colorable fair use defense." Hogan dropped the case but re-filed it in a Florida state court. Last week, a different judge granted his request for a temporary restraining order on the video in addition to all associated materials. Gawker took down the excerpt of the video but refused to remove Daulerio's essay, instead posting a response and parts of the court transcription which the site claims is proof that the judge did not fully understand what the injunction she had issued entailed.

In the post protesting the court order, Gawker editor John Cook called it "risible and contemptuous of centuries of First Amendment jurisprudence".

Gawker has appealed the Florida judge's ruling. On Monday morning, a Florida appeals court issued an emergency stay of the temporary injunction regarding Daulerio's description of the tape. The case will be contested in a District Court of Appeal for the Second Circuit in Florida.

Meanwhile, Hulk Hogan is trying to get Gawker held in civil contempt for openly disobeying the judge's order. In addition to claiming that Gawker's refusal to remove the written content was against the judge's orders, it also points to the website's decision to link to another website featuring the sex tape video, even as it removed the clip, as evidence of the site's contempt.