FAMU sues to get “sex tape” off the web


Florida A&M University was not amused when the name of its teams — the Rattlers — the FAMU logo and the school colors appeared in a video featuring what appeared to be eight students having an orgy.

On Wednesday, the Tallahassee university settled a lawsuit it filed last month in U.S. District Court against the operator of a sexually explicit Web site that posted the video. In the settlement, the company acknowledges that people in the video were not students and they were not filmed on campus.

FAMU had described the video in its suit as “a transparent attempt to trade on the good name and identity of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University and its (trade)marks by wrongly insinuating that its students routinely engage in the debasing and degrading behavior depicted therein.”

RK Netmedia, based in Miami Beach, has agreed to pay $105,000 to fund Life-Gets-Better scholarships for two FAMU undergraduates and foot the $15,000 bill for attorneys’ fees, FAMU announced.

RK Netmedia operates a Web site that promises “the hottest real college girls having wild sex parties in their dorm rooms.”

FAMU sued March 16, about two weeks after the video titled “BigRattler77” was posted on the Web site.

The historically black university alleged trademark dilution and infringement and injury to its business reputation. The FAMU board of trustees approved the settlement Wednesday.

A woman who answered the phone at RK Netmedia said the company would provide a statement within 24 hours. According to FAMU, RK Netmedia agreed to issue an apology and do its best to prevent the video from being shown.

It also agreed to destroy all but one copy that must be kept under federal law, the university said.


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