Gawker Refuses Court’s Hulk Hogan Sex Tape Post Take-Down Order

Hulk Hogan has won a major battle in the war over his sex tape. A judge has ordered Gawker to remove their heavily-edited minute-long clip of the half-hour tape, as well as the (brilliant) article framing it, and hundreds of reader comments. Gawker’s response to the legal order? F— you.

Let’s rewind. Last year, Hulk filed a $100 million federal lawsuit against Gawker after they uploaded a short clip of the sex tape he made with Heather Clem, the then-wife of Hulk’s friend Bubba the Love Sponge (yes, real guy). Accompanying the tape was a 1,400-word epic analysis of the tape by former editor A.J. Daulerio.

Hulk cited invasion of privacy and infliction of emotional distress, but failed to win the case.

So what does he do? He re-files in the state of Florida, where Judge Pamela Campbell of the Sixth Judicial Circuit in Pinellas County saw fit to grant him a temporary restraining order, which forces Gawker‘s editors to pull the video, article, et al from the site.

But Gawker has no intention of going quietly. John Cook, editor of Gawker, wrote his own epic analysis of the Hulk Hogan sex tape case this afternoon. Though we can hardly do it justice by paring it down into quotes and the like here (it’s best if you just go read it for yourself), the gist of it is “No, f— you very much.”

Though in the end Gawker complied by removing the tape from the post (pending their appeal), they absolutely refuse to bring down Daulerio’s post.

Cook writes that the “order compelling us to remove the entirety of Daulerio’s post—his words, his speech—is grossly unconstitutional.”

They also liberally included outside links to other pages where you can watch the Hulk Hogan sex tape.

What do you think? Should Gawker comply with the order to take the Hulk Hogan sex tape post offline, or are they within their constitutional rights?

[Images via: daysofthundr46, Wikimedia Commons]