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Judge Makes Landmark Ruling on SG Model Contracts

* Feb. 10th, 2008 at 1:08 AM


tidwellh
January 29, 2008 - Los Angles, CA -- A judge with the Los Angeles Superior Court recently made a landmark ruling about the contracts between S.G. Services Inc (AKA SuicideGirls) and the models bound by SG contracts. For years models, industry insiders, and casual observers have voiced the opinion that the model releases were unlawful and overly broad, but until now those that signed it were bound by the terms.

The contracts have been changed many times but most of the model contracts posted online forbid modeling for any other "competing" site while the girls model for SG and for a period of two years after they quit SG. Some of the more popular girls are rumored to have special terms with higher payments and longer periods of exclusivity. It is still unclear what effect the ruling will have on them.

SG has a very broad definition of what a competitor is and have filed lawsuits against former contractors claiming that even single girl personality based web sites are competition to their empire of DVDs, books, magazines, radio shows, merchandise, podcasts, and touring performance troupes. In addition to suing former photographer Philip Warner (AKA Lithium Picnic) they have also blacklisted him, threatening models with lawsuits and removal from the site for working with him even for noncompetitive or portfolio projects.

So what exactly is this ruling? I'm glad you asked.

"The Court finds that, in any matters determined at trial. Plaintiff God's Girls LCC is entitled to judgment as a matter of law that each and every version of SG Services, Inc's model release, including but not limited to those attached as Exhibits to the operative Complaint on file in this exaction, are void and invalid as a matter of law, at least to the extent that the releases are intended to provide that a model is "exclusive" to SG Services, Inc. and/or to prohibit a model from modeling or otherwise providing services for God's Girls LLC."

(link provided below)

What does this mean to current and past SG models? I'm no attorney but it appears to open the floodgates for SG models to shoot for other sites if they choose.

Does this impact SG models that live outside California? Possibly. You'll need to talk to an attorney in your area, but this sets a very good precedent against the contract. While SG can not sue Godsgirls over the contract it's not clear if they can still sue the models. Many states that share California's dim view on exclusivity will likely echo this ruling and support freedom for the models.

The owners of SG take competition very seriously. In addition to the ongoing litigation with Godsgirls they have gone after the profits of former model Apnea's website apneatic.com. It appears that SG has spent over half a million dollars fighting lawsuits against perceived competitors in the past year, ironically SG has never successfully won a lawsuit.

SG was able to prevent Chad Grant from launching Deviantnation.com for almost two years by tying him up in federal and civil lawsuits at a cost of over $40,000 to Grant. The cost to the US Government in the Federal case against Grant was probably close to one million dollars. Grant prevailed in both cases.

SG site traffic and membership are reported to be declining steadily as morale and public opinion about the site continue to be affected by the owner's decisions and management choices.

Expect some big changes at SG as they spin this ruling and adapt the site to deal with the change in exclusivity. The proposed set submission system is a genius idea that could potentially save the site owners over $100,000 in photoset purchasing costs per year, and the voting system that goes along with it will allow the owners to "reward" those that stay exclusive and "punish" those that don't by not taking sets. Ex-SG model Mitsuko experienced something similar to this when she was allegedly told by Missy that they were "no longer accepting sets from Mitsuko" shortly after portfolio photos of her shot by Lithium Picnic appeared on the internet.

This explains the recent surge in limbo girls being pushed out and Missy's recent uncharacteristic willingless to let some of the girls out of their contracts.

So the more things change the more they stay the same, but any way you look at it this is a huge win for the models as well as the members of others sites who will now be able to see their favorite models in more than one place online.

Thanks to Godsgirls.com for having the courage to stand up against SG, and a special thanks to DeviantNation.com for breaking the story and hosting the court documents HERE.

Your humble servant,
Hollister Tidwell

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she just got divorced too.

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