Wrangling a sex tape

One aspect of viral marketing that fascinates me is shame.

While Kim Kardashian would have had to have signed a release in order that her sex tape with rapper/former boyfriend Ray J could be sold, she publicly distances herself from any involvement in the negotiations that ultimately resulted in Vivid’s purchase of the rights to sell it.

While money will definitely appear in Kardashian’s bank account, if it hasn’t already, it appears that she feels that actively shilling her tape reflects poorly on her, so she is claiming to be a victim of the process, recently threatening to sue Vivid.

If Vivid doesn’t already have her consent to release the tape, it will be a stunning lawsuit. Watch for various and sundry lawsuit threats to be made and then quietly retracted in the coming weeks.

Vivid co-chairman Steve Hirsch said he is “comfortable” his company has “the legal right to distribute this video.”

Porn rental/purchase etailer SugarDVD and other companies (including Vivid and Redlight District) were approached by “a third party” when Kardashian was researching selling her tape (though brief, Kardashian’s performance is better than that of her pal Paris Hilton and fame-tier partner Dustin Diamond). It quickly became a high magnitude non-event, with SugarDVD announcing in several media that it had “offered” Kardashian $2 million for the rights.

When Vivid last week announced that it had secured the rights for about $1 million, I asked a Vivid official why Kardashian had given up the other million.

“I think you’ll find the other offer involved a nebulous back-end deal,” he said.

I asked SugarDVD president Jax about the process.

“We were the initial negotiators for the tape beginning three months ago,” Jax said. “After the first discussion about the tape we waited for two months and then were told it might not be released. During this same time we stated to the NY Daily News that we felt the tape ‘could’ be worth $1.5 million. After the NY Daily News story ran we were told by email that we would get a call soon about acquiring the tape. That call never came. Three weeks later Vivid announced they had purchased it.”

Jax does not know why the deal went to Vivid, but his consolation prize is that his company can make money from the tape regardless when Vivid releases it, and that SugarDVD is now considered a player in the celebrity sex-tape market, available to purchase my home erotic spoken word happenings.

“They felt Vivid could promote it better,” Jax hypothesized, “thereby getting Kim’s name out there more. That possibility would require an assumption that Kim is using this as an opportunity to promote herself.”

Jax was surprised that the feckless third party was not polite.

“We would have liked to have a call before it was sold,” he added, “but that’s the way it goes.”

Previously: SugarDVD enters friend-of-celebrity sex tape market
See also: Vivid, SugarDVD

About Gram the Man 4399 Articles
Gram Ponante is America's Beloved Porn Journalist

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