Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

I”m pretty fascinated by the fact that a huge stash of Paris Hilton”s private photos, videos, diaries, etc. have been turned into a gawker/porn site after being auctioned off to settle a mini-storage bill. Talk about the perfect marriage of celebrity obsession and technology.

And surely lots will be written about all this. But what interested me – ok, it”s not the only thing that interested me – was reading through the site”s terms of service. I suppose it”s somewhat standard at adult sites to have to agree to things like:

“I VOLUNTARILY CHOOSE TO ENTER THIS WEBSITE BECAUSE I WANT TO VIEW, READ AND/OR HEAR THE VARIOUS MATERIALS WHICH ARE AVAILABLE, FOR MY OWN PERSONAL ENJOYMENT, INFORMATION AND/OR EDUCATION. MY CHOICE IS A MANIFESTATION OF MY INTEREST IN SEXUAL MATTERS WHICH, I BELIEVE, IS BOTH HEALTHY AND NORMAL AND WHICH, IN MY EXPERIENCE, IS GENERALLY SHARED BY AVERAGE ADULTS IN MY COMMUNITY. I AM FAMILIAR WITH THE STANDARDS IN MY COMMUNITY REGARDING THE ACCEPTANCE OF SUCH SEXUALLY ORIENTED MATERIALS, AND THE MATERIALS I EXPECT TO ENCOUNTER ARE WITHIN THOSE STANDARDS. IN MY JUDGMENT, THE AVERAGE ADULT IN MY COMMUNITY ACCEPTS THE CONSUMPTION OF SUCH MATERIALS BY WILLING ADULTS IN CIRCUMSTANCES SUCH AS THIS WHICH TAKE REASONABLE AND PRUDENT MEASURES TO INSULATE THE MATERIALS FROM MINORS AND UNWILLING ADULTS, AND WILL NOT FIND SUCH MATERIALS TO APPEAL TO A PRURIENT INTEREST OR TO BE PATENTLY OFFENSIVE.”

Sure.

But what I figure is fairly unique to this particular site is this piece of the TOS:

PROHIBITED ACCESS AREAS
All of the following areas constitute PROHIBITED AREAS from which no part of the website may be accessed, viewed, downloaded or otherwise received:

A. All parts of the United States of America;

B. All parts of the following countries: Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, Libya, Pakistan, The Republic of China, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Syria, The United Arab Emirates; and

C. All parts of every other geophysical place corresponding to a political entity or part thereof in which the access, viewing, downloading or other use of materials at the website would, or could reasonably, constitute a violation of any law, regulation, rule or custom. YOU shall at no time access, view, download, receive or otherwise use, or cause or enable any other person or entity to access, view, download, receive or make use of any portion of said Content, directly or indirectly in places where COMPANY does not authorize such access, viewing, downloading, receipt or other use, including but not limited to “Restricted Areas.” As used herein, “Restricted Areas” means the following geographical areas: any nation, state or province or portion thereof where the access, viewing, downloading or any other use of the Content would, or could reasonably, be a violation of any civil or criminal law, governmental regulation or court decision.

That”s right. You agree not to access the site from the United States – or what sounds like the rest of the civilized world.

I have to assume this is an attempt to deflect liability from the people who bought Paris” tittie pictures by “prohibiting” anybody from accessing the site from any jurisdiction that might lend some rights to Paris to not have her tittie pictures sold by somebody else.

But I wonder how well this kind of shielding attempt will work – especially considering the default country shown in the signup form is, in fact, the United States. I”ll be interested to see how this thing plays out.

I get that landing the first post-baby interview with Angelina Jolie is a big deal in TV “news” land. And promoting the inteview certainly makes sense:

But Jesus has CNN gone overboard on this. They”ve been running little teaser clips all through the day since at least last Thursday promoting Anderson Cooper”s big catch (Larry King, you”re done), then tonight they actually had Anderson Cooper being interviewed live on Paula Zahn”s show about Anderson Cooper”s interview with Angelina Jolie. There”s a good chance Anderson will be on Larry King tomorrow night talking about his experience interviewing Angelina Jolie.

[editor"s note: The one clip I saw last Thursday made me really like Angelina. Anderson asked her "Is it true you donate a third of your salary to charitable causes?" and Angelina whipped back something like "Yeah, but I make a ridiculous amount of money for the work that I do."]