What you can recover
Your actual damages or $150,000, plus your attorney fees and the costs of the case. The court can also order the person to stop showing or sharing the images.
Private Again · Federal law
Federal law sets damages at $150,000 or your actual losses, and lets you sue under a pseudonym.
Two federal laws apply. One gives you a civil claim for money. The other makes posting the images a crime and forces websites to take them down.
Here is what federal law gives you, in plain English. Talk to us before you decide anything. Please do NOT send us the images; we do not need them to have that conversation.
- Based on current federal law
- Please do NOT send us the images
- Under 18 in the images? Go to the police, not to us
Federal law
The federal civil claim
This is the law that puts a number on the harm. If someone shared an intimate image of you without your consent, knowing you had not consented or not caring whether you had, you can sue that person in federal court.
Your name stays out of it
The court may let you bring the case under a pseudonym, so your name is not in the public file. That protection is written into the law itself.
Sending it once is not consent
Agreeing to have a picture taken is not agreeing to have it shared. Sharing it with one person is not permission for that person to share it further.
Who the claim is against
The claim runs against the person who shared, posted, or made the images available, not against someone who only received or viewed them. Consent under this law means a real, voluntary yes, not one obtained by pressure, deception, or force.
Every figure on this page is what the statute allows. What a case is worth depends on the evidence, who the defendant is, and what a court or jury finds. No outcome is guaranteed.
Why it matters to call now
The law does not spell out its own filing deadline, and the deadline can depend on when the images were first shared. That is why it is important to contact us as soon as you can, save everything you have, and work with an attorney before anything is filed.
Start a free, confidential case review or call (561) 455-4455. Please do NOT send us the images.
The TAKE IT DOWN Act
Posting it is a federal crime
The TAKE IT DOWN Act made it a federal crime to knowingly post intimate images of an adult online without consent. That is separate from your civil claim; the civil claim is yours to bring regardless.
Real images
Posting an intimate image of an identifiable adult without consent, where the image was made in private and the posting causes harm or is meant to.
AI fakes
The same rule covers fakes made or altered with software or AI that a reasonable person could not tell from a real image of you.
Threats
Threatening to post a real image or a fake, to intimidate, coerce, extort, or cause distress, is also a crime.
Same consent rule
Agreeing to have the image taken is not consent to post it, and sharing it with one person is not consent to that person posting it. The criminal law and the civil law say the same thing.
The TAKE IT DOWN Act
The 48-hour takedown rule
The same Act requires covered websites to have a removal process and to act on a valid request within 48 hours, removing the images and making reasonable efforts to find and remove known copies.
The request can come from you or from someone acting on your behalf. We submit the request, document it, and use that record if the website fails to act. The law gives you no claim against the website; its duty is enforced by the government.
What to save tonight, and how we use the rule for clients, is on the what-to-do-tonight page.
Why the federal claim matters
- The number is fixed. $150,000 does not depend on proving what the harm cost you. Florida’s laws set their floor at $10,000.
- Your name can stay out of the file. The pseudonym protection is in the law itself.
- Florida law adds more. Florida’s three laws give separate claims for images that were shared, stolen or sold, and faked. Which of them fit your facts is something we work out with you.
A free, confidential case review tells you which claims fit your facts. You can also call (561) 455-4455.
Federal revenge porn law, questions answered
Short answers, based on current federal law.
Yes. The TAKE IT DOWN Act, at 47 U.S.C. 223(h), makes it a federal crime to knowingly post an intimate image, or an AI fake, of an identifiable adult online without consent where the posting causes harm or is meant to. Threats to post are covered too.
Under 15 U.S.C. 6851, your actual damages or $150,000, plus attorney fees and the costs of the case, and a court order requiring the person to stop showing or sharing the images. Those are the figures the law allows; what any case is worth depends on the evidence, the defendant, and what a court finds.
Not necessarily. The law lets the court keep your identity confidential and allow you to sue under a pseudonym. It is something the court may grant rather than an automatic right, and how it is asked for matters.
Not under these laws. The 48-hour takedown rule is enforced by the government, not by a lawsuit from you, and the federal civil claim runs against the person who shared the images.
Yes. The TAKE IT DOWN Act expressly covers images made or altered with software, machine learning, or artificial intelligence that look real. Florida law covers them as well; see the deepfakes page.
Yes. Federal law says that agreeing to have an image taken is not consent to have it shared, and that sharing it with one person is not consent to that person sharing it further.
The federal claim covers a person who knew you had not consented, and also a person who did not care whether you had. Either one is enough.
Federal law covers images where you can be identified by your face, your likeness, another distinguishing feature such as a birthmark, or by information posted with the image. Whether an image identifies you is one of the first things we look at.
Yes. The TAKE IT DOWN Act makes it a crime to threaten to post a real intimate image, or an AI fake, in order to intimidate, coerce, extort, or cause distress. Save the threat and do not answer it.
Yes. The takedown rule is separate from the lawsuit. Once a covered website receives a valid removal request, it has 48 hours to remove the images and make reasonable efforts to remove known copies. We prepare and submit that request as part of your case.
The law does not state its own deadline, and the deadline can depend on when the images were first shared rather than when you found them. Bring every date you have, and do not assume you have years.
Federal law applies across the country, so the person living in another state does not take the claim away. Where the case is filed is a question we answer with your facts.
Florida law adds three more claims
Florida’s laws each give a civil claim of their own, with $10,000 minimums and, for shared images, punitive damages.