Thakilla writes: What I want to know, and maybe you can report on is how does the Paris Hilton tape and lawsuits compare or parallel to the Pamela Anderson & Vince Neil tapes? It seems like a similar situation but now the Hiltons have been able to stop (for now) the full video release where as no one was able to stop it before. Any idea or old reports from the Anderson & Neil tapes?

Gene replies: So far the only lawsuit that’s been filed is from the Rick Salomon camp, although mere threats from the Hilton family have been enough to squelch the tape’s possible distribution. My thinking is that the tape will have some kind of distribution despite, ahem, non-compliance with 18 USC S 2257 being that Paris is obviously a willing participant by tape’s evidence.

In the book, The Dirt, Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band, both Tommy Lee and Vince Neil address the issue of their respective tapes. Lee talks about how he and Anderson were having dinner at home and flipping through news stations on TV when they heard their names mentioned on a news show. Then it hit them. Describing how he and Anderson made the tape on a five-day houseboat trip on Lake Mead, Lee said they had put the tape in a 500-pound safe which was hidden underneath a carpet in his studio control room in his garage. Lee said that Christmas he and Anderson were spending time in London while work was being done on their house. Lee said he later discovered the safe to be missing and because their was no other evidence of break-in, suspected that it was an inside job. Lee doesn’t name names- Rand Gautier- but suspects “an electrician who used to be a porn star.”

[Gautier worked for former porn star/director/soundstage owner Milt Ingley who has long been suspected as the mastermind behind the tape’s disappearance and subsequent distribution.]

In the book, Lee suspects that the safe was removed with a crane and believes that the perps were after guns and jewelry but landed an even bigger fish. Lee said his lawyers went after the construction company. The next thing he knew, “a porn peddler” from Internet Entertainment Group called him. Lee was told that the tape was going to be broadcast on the Internet. IEG, said Lee, was delivered a cease and desist order but for some reason didn’t arrive on time, according to him.

Lee: “Our lawyers and managers advised us that the best way ti minimize the damages was to sign a contract saying that, since the company had us by the balls, we would reluctantly allow a onetime Webcast so long as they didn’t sell, copy, trade, or rebroadcast it.”

Lee goes on to write that IEG [and owner Seth Warshavsky] breached its agreement, evidenced by the fact that the tape was mass-marketed. Lee said he and Anderson took IEG to court but that the judge shut them down on the privacy issue and ruled that the content was newsworthy.

[Gene muses: one has to suspect that the judge was exercising some bit of moral superiority and certitude concerning pornography in a decision that basically involved theft and stolen property, if we’re to believe Lee’s account.]

Vince Neil has this to say about his tape with Janine, noting that they had been dating. Neil said he and Janine brought along a Penthouse Pet with them to Hawaii, to celebrate completion of an album. “One of them brought a video camera and, when we were all fucked up one night, set it up and taped the action.” After Hawaii, Neil said he and Janine went their separate ways and she started dating the “Penthouse Pet.”

Neil: “I didn’t think anything about the two of them until years later when, after the Pamela and Tommy Lee home video leaked out, my tape was suddenly on the market. I thought that Janine had sold it for money, because I never had a copy. I was pissed at her, but refrained from suing her or calling her out publicly because I didn’t want to draw any more attention to the sex tape. Fortunately I didn’t do anything, because I later found out through the tape’s distributor that the other girl leaked it, which made sense when I finally watched the video, because her face had been blurred out.”