back to article Gawker settles with Hogan

The long-running legal fight between the now-defunct Gawker Media and Terry Gene Bollea, aka Hulk Hogan, has been settled at last. The organization has agreed to pay Bollea $31m to settle all claims relating to the publication of a tape of the former professional wrestler having sex with a friend's wife. In May, a court …

  1. Graham Dawson Silver badge

    Good. They were a shitty clickbait rag that had a long history of publicising the private lives of people without any care for the consequences of their actions.

  2. Grunchy Silver badge

    Whatever

    Denton can write anywhere, this might slow him down a little bit but instantly makes him a celebrity with a lot of cred.

    I wonder in what form Gawker 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 will take...

  3. Adam 52 Silver badge

    "If there is a lasting legacy from this experience, it should be a new awareness of the danger of dark money in litigation finance."

    Nope; if there is any legacy it should be that more scum-bag, gutter journalists who destroy reputations for kicks get put out business by the Courts.

    Similar to the ones currently whining in the UK that they'll suffer huge costs if they don't agree to arbitration.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Two sets of rules (again)

    Oh, I get it. It's OK for corporations to spend unfathomable amounts of money on attorneys specifically to bankrupt a small guy looking for justice, but when the tables are turned it's "Dark Money" at fault. Blow me.

    1. Mark 85

      Re: Two sets of rules (again)

      The old saying still applies... "When in doubt, follow the money.".

  5. Faceless Man

    Let's face it, there are no good guys here.

    Gawker were scum, but they had a right to exist, and you could always ignore them. I won't pretend they had any form of journalistic integrity, and would even argue that what they did to Peter Thiel was pretty deplorable.

    On the other hand, Peter Thiel has basically taken a personal vendetta and created a precedent for the extremely rich to bankrupt companies they don't like. There were other ways to take this, and other solutions he could have sought, but he wanted the company dead.

    Neither side is to be admired, here. I won't miss Gawker, but I don't want rich bastards like Thiel being able to just bankrupt companies on a whim.

    1. Martin Summers Silver badge

      If they hadn't given the guy 2 bloody good reasons to then I'm sure he wouldn't have just sued them, it was hardly on a whim!

    2. Adam 52 Silver badge

      " created a precedent for the extremely rich to bankrupt companies they don't like"

      Only if they violate copyright, basic human rights and ignore court orders. It was the jury decision and judgement that bankrupted them, not the fees. If they'd done nothing criminal[1] then they'd have been fine.

      [1] I'm not very good on the subtleties of US copyright law, but those FBI warnings imply that commercial copyright infringement is a crime. Unless you are Google, of course.

      1. JimC

        The real scandal to my mind

        Is not that a bunch of bottom feeding scum have been taken down by the law, but that unless you have a billionaire on your side you can't take on the lowlives with the law.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Gawker fashioned their own Bed of Procrustes to which they were fitted later.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon