I came across something online yesterday that didn't sit too well with me.
It is a video on AEBN that includes several scenes shot at various parties in Las Vegas at this last year's Internext. A particular site had a bunch of their models in attendance at the parties, and during the parties these models engaged in various sex acts with one another, in front of attendees and during the party.
The problem with it is that in the background of much of this footage can be seen most every webmaster who attended any of these Vegas events (The PrideBucks Q-Fest and Cybersocket after parties that my company sponsored). So simply by attending what you looked forward to as a business and networking event could very well have landed you in - without your knowledge or express permission, I'd imagine - someone else's porn video now being sold and distributed for profit in DVDs and on at least one VOD site.
I know I didn't sign a release to be in someone else's video, yet I spotted myself talking to a couple of webmasters near the bar in the background of a scene with a few of this companies models having sex in the foreground. Even walking past the action on your way to the bathroom or bar could have landed you a close up cameo in the video.
No one was made aware there was filming going on that'd be released in a for-sale product. The video is from a company that wasn't sponsoring at least one of the events in the movie and so had no part in organizing it and no opportunity to warn webmasters what would be taking place.
And if you walked by the models while they were naked and giving eachother blowjobs on the floor and decided to smack one of them in the ass, are you now a participant in a sexually explicit act on video that requires your 2257 documentation?
There are a host of dubious elements to this all.
Shouldn't we, as webmasters and business folk attending an event to conduct business and further the interests of our businesses in a networking environment not have to worry about ending up in someone else's porn production, without our permission and even without our knowledge?
I would hope that the company responsible would either remove this video as a professional courtesy to other webmasters unwittingly featured in it, or at the very, very least edit it so as to remove any scenes of dubious nature from the production.
How do you feel about it? Do you think that by attending one of these events you pretty much grant anyone with a camera the right to capture you on film and turn the finished product with you present in to a for-profit video? Do you think I'm just being too much the party pooper here? Or do you also feel this video's release was an unwise idea?
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