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Maloney said that a defense-hired expert in pornography valuation, Dr. Victoria Hartmann, determined the destroyed collection’s value to be $30,441.54, the amount he ordered the defendants to pay.
Hartmann could not provide a value for 107 titles on the son’s list.
Not only is this a job I didn't know existed, but it's one I didn't know you needed a PhD for, either. Her dissertation would make for an intriguing read, to say the least.
The fact that this guy possessed a $30k porn collection likely explains his marital status, too.
Vaguely related to which, back in the '90s, working in a little arthouse, I was scheduled to project The Man With the Golden Gun as part of a Bond retrospective. When the print arrived, I was surprised to discover that there were only two reels in the box. Upon closer inspection, I discovered why: the distributor had made a mistake, and had shipped us not the Bond movie itself, but a gay porno inspired by it, memorably titled The Man With the Golden Bum (and yes, it did contain a scene involving the use of gold spray paint as lube!).
Someone I mentioned this to opined that I was stupid to have packed this print off and sent it back (after it had given us all a politically incorrect giggle, of course), because if it had accidentally gotten "lost," apparently there are collectors who would have paid me very good money indeed for it. As this was before the days of Ebay, I didn't like the thought of what I would have had to have done to find one, though...
Yeah, it's a bit of an awkward topic, but if you're looking at the underlying story, it's not all that strange. If this wasn't a porn collection, but let's say a stamp collection, then the case would be much less wound-up in taboos. Having a collection of pornographic materials (in this case, it wasn't just porn videos on a hard drive, but apparently also included magazines), is a perfectly legal thing in most "western" jurisdictions. So, if you destroy someone else's porn collection, you may be liable for the damages.
How to quantify those damages is a bit more difficult, especially for virtual goods...
My brother had a collection of vintage Playboy magazines. He had a lot of the "biggies"...Janet Jackson, Madonna, etc.
A lot of them were in run-of-the-mill condition but there were some in mint condition. It certainly wasn't a million dollar collection but easily several thousand dollars worth.
He lost the whole thing when his apartment building burned down because some dickhead, down the hall, fell asleep in bed with a lit cigarette.
His renter's insurance wouldn't cover it because it was "porn."
If this wasn't a porn collection, but let's say a stamp collection, then the case would be much less wound-up in taboos.
It wouldn't be a news story. Collecting stamps as a curatorial activity is a widespread hobby that has been done for over a century. Same for collecting paintings, books, records, and lots of other objects that your average middle class Joe has a few dozen or hundred of. But porno mags?
What appears to make this newsworthy is that (a) someone is suing his parents over it, and (b) there is at least one individual in the country who makes her living estimating the monetary value of pornographic artifacts. I'm not sure it's because of being wound up in taboos. The former owner of this collection clearly doesn't have any problem telling the whole world about it!
You see, that's where I think where the numbers are getting skewed. I guess that "collecting porn" is a much more widespread hobby than collecting stamps for example, it's just that almost nobody will openly admit it, or go so far and sue their parents over it.
My brother had a collection of vintage Playboy magazines. He had a lot of the "biggies"...Janet Jackson, Madonna, etc.
A lot of them were in run-of-the-mill condition but there were some in mint condition. It certainly wasn't a million dollar collection but easily several thousand dollars worth.
He lost the whole thing when his apartment building burned down because some dickhead, down the hall, fell asleep in bed with a lit cigarette.
His renter's insurance wouldn't cover it because it was "porn."
Well, this would be an interesting case, wouldn't it?
- First of all, does the insurer specifically exclude "porn" in their contract? And if so, why do they do so? Many insurers are bound by laws and guidelines and can't just willy-nilly exclude stuff from their coverage, so why would they exclude "porn" from it?
- Secondly, calling Playboy "porn" is probably worth a discussion in its own...
Well, I don't think I've used the word "porn" so often in a Film-Tech post ever before.
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