I got a nice note from Fritz Schranck today with some comments about my recent post about Amber Kulhanek's default judgment against Arco Media. Kulhanek claims she was coerced into entering a wet T-shirt contest where she was filmed flashing her breasts by Arco, who then used the footage in an ad run on the E! network. She won a $5 million judgment when Arco never responded to the lawsuit.

Fritz tells me that it's not uncommon for default judgments to be removed so that a case can go forward on its merits. Usually, though the defaulter needs to have a reason for not responding in the first place. I'm guessing "I overslept" is not a good reason here.

Fritz also suggests that Arco Media is likely to have no real assets or insurance and thus be judgment proof. If all their revenues essentially went towards marketing the product and they went out of business when sales dropped, there won't be anything to collect. I think this is dead on. I mean, how high is the barrier to enter this market? All you need is a camcorder, a couple of VCRs, a Mailboxes Etc account, and a web page. And let's face it, the proprietors are unlikely to be Chamber of Commerce types.

Anyway, I suspect this is the last we'll hear of this case. The article I originally linked did mention a different lawsuit against another such video company, one which is being challenged. That will be worth watching.