October 13, 2016
Public Pleas to Disney to Stop Pornographers Exploiting Disney Characters
Enough Is Enough® Urges Disney to Pursue Legal Action to Protect Elsa, Anna, Snow White, and the Innocence of our Children
WASHINGTON, DC—Enough Is Enough®® (EIE) has partnered with CitizenGo.com to launch a petition campaign urging Disney to take action to stop the ongoing proliferation of Disney themed hard-core porn sites, which are an apparent violation of Disney's copyrighted brands.
The petition campaign launched after learning that Disney is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit designed to shut down VidAngel, a small, faith-based startup venture whose online parental control software empowers parents to filter out sex and inappropriate language. Disney’s lawsuit against VidAngel, is based on the company’s concern about copyright issues. The 2005 Family Movie Act explicitly allows for companies like VidAngel to provide such a service to parents.
The campaign has gotten more than 11,000 petition signatures in less than 3 days. Donna Rice Hughes, President and CEO of EIE, asks concerned parents, grandparents and citizens of the world to sign the petition urging Disney executives to take legal action against online pornographers exploiting the Disney brand by lewd portrayal of popular Disney characters. “Disney characters are cherished by children worldwide and need to be protected from unscrupulous pornographers who depict them in obscene pictures and videos performing graphic sexual acts. Children can easily stumble across this online pornography, which will shatter their innocent hearts and minds” says Mrs. Hughes. "The multi-billion dollar Internet porn industry has historically used deceptive and misleading marketing tactics to trick online users to get them to their porn sites including the misuse of popular cartoon characters.”
EIE brought this issue to the attention of Disney several times over the past 15 years asking the multi-billion dollar entertainment company to take legal action against the abuse of its Disney copyrights and trademarks. In 2016, Hughes showed key policy leaders an excerpt from EIE’s award winning Internet Safety 101® DVD series which used Disney Porn Land as an example to parents of the unscrupulous marketing tactics of pornographers to lure children into their porn sites. The Disney Porn Land site has not been taken down. It has only grown to incorporate the newest and most popular Disney characters. A recent Google search of Disney-themed porn produced more than 12 million results.
“Online pornographers will stop at nothing to attract our kids. If they can hook children at a young age when they are curious, their hormones are raging and their brains and bodies are underdeveloped, they will likely have a consumer for life unless the addiction cycle is broken. Neither kids or adults can un-see these images, they can’t be erased from your mind” said Mrs. Hughes, is a grandmother of three young grandchildren who adore Disney products. EIE encourages the public to the sign petition.
Enough Is Enough®® is a national bi-partisan non-profit organization who has led the fight to make the Internet safer for children and families since 1994. EIE's efforts are focused on combating Internet p*rnography, child p*rnography, sexual predation, child sex trafficking and cyberbullying by incorporating a three-pronged prevention strategy with shared responsibilities between the public, Corporate America, and the legal community.
To arrange an interview with Donna Rice Hughes, contact Cassandre Durocher at Shirley & Banister Public Affairs at
(703) 739-5920 or cdurocher@sbpublicaffairs.com
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