One of the pioneer adult sites to put a group of college-age women under constant video surveillance, Entertainment Network, Inc., the owner of Voyeur Dorm, is being sued for overtime pay by a group of webcam girls who claim that even when their shifts were over providing entertainment for the site's 40,000 subscribers, they were still under the watchful eye of 50 or so webcams stationed in every nook and cranny of the house.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court by three principal webcam girls, none of whom still work for the company, and nine other girls have since joined the lawsuit. The plaintiffs claim that the requirements of being a Voyeur Dorm babe pushed labor law boundaries into the red zone.
The plaintiffs are seeking back pay on all hours that they were required to work overtime.
Daniel de Vise of the Miami Herald is attributing the terms of the lawsuit to "New Deal-era labor concepts" because the women are claiming that the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 entitles them to overtime.
During a time period where reality television and adult webcam content is so abundant, the case has the potential to apply some groundbreaking, albeit old-fashioned, labor practices to the modern day media world, Vise contends.
The owners of Voyeur Dorm, who were not available for comment at the time of this printing, claim that the girls on staff rarely fulfilled their 40-hour a week commitments and that they were not entitled to overtime because they were paid on a weekly salary basis. Typically, Voyeur Dorm girls are paid up to $800 per week to lounge around, play nude games, and interact with housemates.
The owners of Voyeur Dorm have filed a counter-suit against two of the plaintiffs alleging that they violated a non-compete agreement by going to work for a company called "Voyeur Cam Friends," a close rival of Voyuer Dorm located in the same city.
A court date has not yet been set.
The operators of Voyeur Dorm are no strangers to ongoing legal woes. In May of 2000, the owners of the site filed a lawsuit against CBS claiming the broadcaster used proprietary information to launch the reality television series "Big Brother."
Voyeur Dorm and CBS were allegedly in talks prior to the launch of the hit television series over the prospect of developing a radio program for Infinity Broadcasting with a similar concept.
The Voyeur Dorm lawsuit asked the court to prohibit the airing of "Big Brother" since it violated a non-disclosure statement.
A year prior to its unsuccessful suit against CBS, Voyeur Dorm was threatened with closure by the Tampa City Council, which claimed that it violated regulations against housing adult entertainment businesses in residential neighborhoods.
Entertainment Network was able to continue to run its voyeur website while the legal tussle continued, and two years later, reversing the decision of the District Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Voyeur Dorm was not subject to Florida city rules because it used the house to distribute video, not to physically host customers.