Voyeur Web - ABC Good Morning America

Voyeur Dorm in the news again.

From: ABC Good Morning America | Date: May 20, 1999 | Author: GINA SMITH, DIANE SAWYER

DIANE SAWYER, Host: Well, here's a question for you. How much would it take for you to allow voyeur cameras in your home recording your every move, in your bedroom, in your shower, thousands to watch, 24 hours a day?

Sounds like the stuff of movies and reality TV, "The Truman Show." But five college coeds have willingly put themselves under a very public voyeur camera, and ABC News computer editor Gina Smith has the revealing and controversial story.

GINA SMITH, ABC News: (voice-over) See Trixie read. See Brandy do laundry. And see Mira (ph) do a lot of things we can't show you on a network morning show.

(on camera) What is your mom going to say when she sees this piece today?

1st VOYEUR DORM ROOMMATE: Oh, my God.

GINA SMITH: (voice-over) Toni (ph), Mira, Alex (ph), Trixie, and Brandy star in their own real-life drama. There are dozens of cameras installed throughout their house that broadcast everything the five roommates do to anyone on the Internet. They call it Voyeur Dorm.

1st VOYEUR DORM ROOMMATE: They want to see the real us, you know, (crosstalk).

2nd VOYEUR DORM ROOMMATE: I don't hide anything.

ALEX, 21 Years Old: When people say "Voyeur Dorm," and explain voyeurism, it's kind of like they get a different -- they get, like, a different thought goes into their head, Oh, porno, or, Oh, my gosh, they're sitting around naked. But it's totally not like that.

GINA SMITH: (voice-over) More than 5,000 people pay $35 a month to watch the girls.

3rd VOYEUR DORM ROOMMATE: You get so used to being on a voyeur camera all the time that you don't think about it when you're in the shower on camera.

GINA SMITH: You know guys are watching on cam.

But they may not be able to do this for very much longer. You see, the girls are broadcasting every facet of their lives from this voyeur house. It's a residential home within the city limits of Tampa, Florida. City officials say it amounts to an adult voyeur entertainment business, and they want them out.

VOYEUR DORM ROOMMATES: (singing) Happy birthday to you.

MARK DOLAN, Voyeur Dorm web site Attorney: It's not useful or appropriate for government to be regulating what's going on inside people's homes. It has no impact whatsoever on anybody else.

GINA SMITH: (voice-over) Mark Dolan is the attorney representing Voyeur Dorm, a voyeur web site.

MARK DOLAN: It's not an adult use. What's going on is a documentation of people's everyday lives. There's nothing going on in that voyeur house that's different that goes on in your house or my house. I take my clothes off during the course of the day, the girls take their clothes off during the course of the day.

There is no business coming to that house.

GINA SMITH: (voice-over) In fact, Voyeur Dorm web site is a business, not owned by the girls who live there but by this man, cyberporn king Seth Warshavsky. He met the college girls through an ad he placed on a Tampa radio station. Warshavsky is best known for marketing the infamous Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sex video, and distributing over the Internet nude photos of radio celebrity Dr. Laura Schlesinger.

SETH WARSHAVSKY, Voyeur Dorm Owner: I think of Voyeur Dorm adult web site, which is one of our Web sites, as more of a MTV- style real world type program than really an adult Web site, although you'll see some nudity and you'll see some concept that may be considered adult in nature.

GINA SMITH: (voice-over) Warshavsky's Internet Entertainment Group grosses $1.5 million a year from the adult web site. And for their efforts, the girls get free rent and free tuition at the local or junior college of their choice. A male manager also lives in the voyeur house, providing at-home security, and the girls operate under assumed names to protect their identity.

The college girls say they are more than happy with the arrangement.

TONI, 21 Years Old: They pay for school, they pay for the housing, they help us with whatever we need.

ALEX: This is our life. You pay to watch it, and, you know, if you don't want to see it, don't watch.

GINA SMITH: (voice-over) For Good Morning America, I'm Gina Smith.

DIANE SAWYER: A hearing is set for later this month, whether Voyeur Dorm can continue to operate out of that home or has to move outside the Tampa city limits.