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The YouTube personality won a hard-fought battle against an ex-boyfriend who videotaped their sex life and posted the videos online after their breakup.Â
Out YouTube personality Chrissy Chambers, who along with her then-girlfriend, now fiancee. Bria Kam, made a name at the video site at first by making political parody songs and later with a wide swath of videos that ranged from comedic to confessional, has won a revenge porn case against a British ex-boyfriend. The man, whom she dated when she was 18, hadposted videos he'd taken, without her consent, of their sex life on the internet.
The ex-boyfriend, whose identity is ironically protected for legal reasons, was six years older than Chambers when they began dating. In the wake of their breakup, he posted links to six videos of the two of them having sex, three of which included Chambers's full name on them, according to a petition she created to criminalize revenge porn. In the petition Chambers said the videos had been online for two years before she was made aware of their existence in 2013. Adding insult to injury, Chambers had no authority to have the videos removed because she did not own the copyright for the videos she did not consent to shooting.
After years of crusading against revenge porn and bringing a case in a London court against the ex-boyfriend for breach of confidence, misuse of private information, and harassment, the ex accepted liability and agreed to pay Chambers's legal costs and an undisclosed sum, according to the U.K's Evening Standard.
"[This] should serve as a severe warning to those who seek to extort and harm with revenge porn: you cannot do this with impunity, and you will be held accountable for your actions," Chambers said after the decision, according to the BBC. "To every victim of this insidious kind of attack, I am here to say: You can fight back, and win. You will heal and move on - and you will not have to take those steps alone."
The fight to remove the videos went on for five years before this week's landmark decision. Chambers sought to pursue a criminal case, but when she was unable to do so she crowdfunded nearly $37,000 to file the civil case.
The accused has also been ordered to hand over any material he may still have of Chambers and to give up the copyright to the videos he took illegally, which means that she finally has the power to demand the host sites remove the images of her.
After the decision came down in her favor, Chambers celebrated by proposing to Kam on the steps of the court building, and they are now engaged.
Following her years-long battle, Chambers is aware that the win comes with reverberations and implications for other victims and for sexual harassment of all kinds moving forward.
"With the prevalence of conversations surrounding the #MeToo movement and sexual assault and harassment, this win could not mean more to me," Chambers told The Advocate via email. "On a personal level, I never thought this day would come, a feeling so many victims I'm sure can relate to. On a broader scale, I'm just so happy this victory has happened at a time like this and I hope it only encourages more victims to come forward, share their stories and seek justice."
