INDUSTRY NEWS

MrSkin.com is among the rare breed of websites on the Internet that features “celebrity content” AND operates completely within the law. Featuring reviews, bios, ratings, quizzes, commentary and, of course, nude Hollywood celebrities, MrSkin.com boasts over 35,000 pages with the “skinfo” on over 5,000 actresses worldwide.INDUSTRY NEWS

MrSkin.com is among the rare breed of websites on the Internet that features “celebrity content” AND operates completely within the law. Featuring reviews, bios, ratings, quizzes, commentary and, of course, nude Hollywood celebrities, MrSkin.com boasts over 35,000 pages with the “skinfo” on over 5,000 actresses worldwide. Launched in August 1999, the concept of MrSkin.com was the product of years and years of research and video compilation by Jim McBride, who is the President and CEO of SK Intertainment, which owns MrSkin.com.

“I was always a big fan of female celebrity nudity in film. When I was in high school in the late 70’s I used to tape two or three R-rated movies every night off of cable TV. The next day I would edit the nude scenes onto other videotapes. Eventually I had hundreds of ‘best of’ tapes and needless to say, the tapes were very popular with my friends. I would catalogue the tapes into ‘TV stars’, ‘movie stars’, ‘Best of the 70’s’ etc. and I became very knowledgeable on the subject,” states McBride. “Five years ago I so impressed a popular Chicago radio show host in a local bar with my extensive knowledge of celebrity nudity, that he dubbed me ‘Mr. Skin’ and he had me doing regular guest appearances on his show. Before long, I was doing radio interviews all over the U.S.”

Not having a book or a website to promote, McBride did the interviews “for fun” until 1998, when he was introduced to Jim Lillig (and later, to Lillig’s partner Hank Butler), who suggested that he put everything into a website. McBride remembers thinking, “What’s a website?” Throwing caution to the wind, McBride raised some cash, quit his job, and with Lillig and Butler, spent the next nine months learning the biz, inputting data, and planning out the website.

With the help of attorney Patricia A. Felch, who focuses her legal practice on copyright, trademark, Internet, entertainment and arts law, MrSkin.com was given the green light to commence operations. Felch met first with McBride and then with all of the other principals, brainstorming ideas, potential legal issues and ways to resolve them. They focused on how to operate legally and avoid violating anyone’s rights before the site was even developed.

This attention to detail has been ongoing ever since. McBride had already established a name in critiquing nudity in films, and it was that aspect that had to be the focus of the site, in order to comply with U.S. (and global) laws involving copyrights, trademarks, rights of privacy and publicity. Rather than simply throwing up pictures of celebrities, Mr. Skin provides bios on all celebrities pictured and critiques many hundreds of movies – including all movies from which images are taken. Despite not having the permission of the movie studios/copyright holders to use the images on the site, Mr. Skin fits within an exception to the law requiring permission from the copyright holder before publication of the images because the site provides bios and movie critiques – the site is much more than simply nude photos. As a result, in nearly three years of operations, MrSkin.com has had only one incident that has required intervention by their attorney.

Recently, MrSkin.com made the decision to remove all TrueCelebs.com advertising from the site. McBride comments, “Mr. Skin is avoiding sites that exploit nudity and the celebrities, without regard to the law. It takes more time to review and rate celebrity nudity, instead of just splashing it all over the site; but as well, we feel MrSkin.com is a far more interesting site than sites that simply exploit celebrities.”

Indeed when it comes to celebrity exploitation, three of the biggest issues are copyright infringement (someone else owns the photos that you are using), misappropriation of likeness (the model’s image has been altered in the photos), and commercial misappropriation (the model owns her likeness and you don’t have a release to use it). All of this adds up to fraud and theft, and most celebrity sites on the Internet profit from one or a combination of these three violations of the law.

The best way to avoid the aforementioned prohibitions is to comply with the “fair use” exceptions in the law. As critics, news reporters and commentators in the entertainment and sports industries have a right to express their opinions by copying excerpts from what they are critiquing. MrSkin had adopted a similar business model (explained above) which helped the site gain the approval and cooperation of the industries involved. Needless to say, MrSkin.com has done an excellent job of operating within the boundaries of the law and sets the example of how “celebrity content” sites can and should clean up their act.

Presently, McBride does about 500 radio interviews a year including regular visits on syndicated talk shows like The Howard Stern Radio Show and The Tom Leykis Show. The “Mr. Skin Minute” was launched in February 2002, which is a one-minute taped piece featuring “what’s nude” each week in theatre and on DVD. “Most of the major movie companies send me DVDs before they hit stores so I can screen them for female celebrity nudity and promote the best stuff each week on Howard Stern in my Mr. Skin Minute.” Also on a weekly basis, MrSkin supplies a “celebrity nudity clip of the week” for Ifilm.com, as well as regular write-ups for Playboy.com, which includes nudity synopses for all new theatrical releases. A book is due out in Fall 2003 with the possibility of a future Mr. Skin TV show.

Jay “LAJ” Kopita is the Executive Editor for YNOTNews and the Communications Director for YNOTMasters and can be reached at editor@ynotnews.com and jay@ynotmasters.com.