I'm getting strong vibes of Thiel and Gawker here. Attempting to intimidate a billionaire is generally a poor decision.
If it were a crime, it really wouldn’t be much of a threat because they’d be unlikely to follow through, would they?
Edit: there is one federal law where threatening embarrassment is enough, but that requires a demand for money or property, which this is explicitly not.
And because the downvotes are already rolling in: Note that I find this just as abhorrent as you do, and that sexploitation should absolutely be a crime. But the legal situation unfortunately is not at all as clear as the moral one. And the replies below are mostly embarrassing in that nobody even seems to have a clue on the difference between civil and criminal law. Carry on then...
> Blackmail is the crime of threatening to reveal embarrassing, disgraceful or damaging information about a person to the public, family, spouse or associates unless money is paid to purchase silence. It is a form of extortion. Because the information is usually substantially true, it is not revealing the information that is criminal, but demanding money to withhold it.
Blackmail for Theft: Conspiracy to commit Theft.
Blackmail for Fraud: Conspiracy to commit Fraud.
It seems its considered blackmail but in the strictly legal sense I'm not sure. There's probably a law to cover that though, extortion?
Now if AMI wanted you or I to say those statements I’m not sure how valuable they’d be.
I would think that the demand for a public statement would qualify, however, I'm not a lawyer, and this case is unusual enough that I would not be confident in my personal interpretation of the law.
That's entirely untrue. The downvotes are rolling in because your assertion about blackmail is simply wrong. There are a myriad of local, state, and federal laws on blackmail that cover situations like this.
Blackmail can involve any threats to coerce using private materials, not just for financial objectives.