BEACH VOYEUR

South Beach sunbathers unwittingly become fodder for Internet beach voyeurs.

MIAMI BEACH - It was sunny outside and Annett Puskas decided she needed a break from her bookkeeping job in Miami.
So the 21-year-old native Hungarian decided to sunbathe topless on South Beach, something she has done frequently since moving here last year. Tired of passersby gawking, she put her towel down on a narrow stretch of sand near Fifth Street that attracted fewer spectators and voyeurs and seemed more private.

But, as she lay sunning herself on the beach, she and scores of others were being secretly filmed by digital voyeur beach cameras perched atop south beach Ocean Drive buildings. Some of those beach voyeur pictures would find their way to at least a half dozen Internet voyeur sites that charge members up to $20 a month for access to the voyeur pictures of the semi-nude women on South Beach.

Not all beach filming is as discreet. A few enterprising beach voyeurs simply shoulder video cameras and angle them toward topless or thong-wearing beachgoers anywhere from South Beach's First Street to 20th Street.

No matter how they are filmed, the women's beach voyeur pictures often end up being sold _ and always without their knowledge _ on the World Wide Web. It's a lucrative business that cashes in on South Beach's reputation, just as other sites target other beaches worldwide.

``I don't want people to see my body on the Internet,'' said Puskas, a tall, athletic brunette, who takes off her top to tan but puts it back on to swim. ``I don't want my friends or just people to think that I do this professionally.''

While the women are not paid, the beach voyeur Web site publishers profit enormously from their images, said David Bernstein, vice president of an adult industry publication.

``Beach Voyeur sites are the biggest thing on the Internet right now,'' said Bernstein, who describes the adult beach voyeur Web business as billion-dollar industry with between 45,000 and 200,000 sites up at any time.

``Traditional porn is no longer enough. People are always looking for something different, and hidden beach voyeur cameras are the next big thing.''

Under international copyright laws, however, it is illegal to exploit someone's image for commercial purposes without their consent, said Martin Reeder, a media law specialist at the law firm of Steel, Hector and Davis. The women could seek compensatory and even punitive damages from South Florida's beach voyeur publishers for violating a person's reasonable expectation of privacy.

If a woman is topless on the beach, Reeder said, people can look and even film her without any violation. But, the moment the film is sold and distributed, there is the potential for a legal case, although Reeder said he didn't know of any such cases.

Part of the reason for that is most women used as web cover girls don't know they are being filmed and don't check to see if their images are being sold. And not everyone who is filmed minds being put on global display.

Michelle Martinez, 19, said she would rather have a share of the money generated by her seminakedness on the beach than sue the web publisher.

``I really don't mind if they use my body, even if they make money off it,'' said Martinez, who moved to South Beach from New Jersey. ``But it would be nice if I could get some money.''

Sig Splichal, director of the journalism photography program at University of Miami, said the Internet and beach voyeur web publishing have made issues of privacy more complex.

``Anybody can be a publisher on the Internet and the information is disseminated instantaneously and uncensored,'' Splichal said. ``The law has not determined completely the liability on the net. The courts right now are looking at service providers, such as AOL, as bookstores, and as long as they don't edit the content of their pages, they are not liable.''

Obscenity is also regulated to an extent, but beach voyeur sites such as the South Beach ones would not qualify as obscene under the law.
At 19, Sarah Lawrence doesn't know much about the law, but she's well aware of the effect she has on men when she tans topless.

``I am very comfortable with my body,'' said Lawrence, a tall blonde who moved from Wisconsin to work in South Beach's clubs. ``But when I see those beach voyeur perverts with their voyeur cameras zooming in and out, I cover up and give them the finger.''

Equally upset are the women's boyfriends and husbands. `If I see one of those freakezoids filming my wife,'' said Luis Huertas, 33, who stood by his wife, Angelica, 30, ``I'd break him in half.''

People who film the women on the beach for money didn't respond to requests for interviews but those who do it for themselves don't mind talking about it.

Gripping a video camera, Willie Bellamy walks up to topless women and films them while he asks a few questions. Most of the women don't seem to mind.

``This place is unbelievable, man. I mean they are all naked,'' said Bellamy, a tourist from New Haven, Conn. ``Up north, we have nothing like this.'' Bellamy said he isn't a professional photographer; he just films the women to show his friends back home.

``This is the first time I came down here and if I told (my friends) how it is they wouldn't believe me,'' he said. ''So I am bringing this film back to the guys to show them the beach, what they are missing.''

Miami-Dade County's Haulover Beach is a nude beach, but Parks Department spokeswoman Blanca Mesa said beachgoers there don't have to worry about being filmed. That beach has entrance checkpoints and, while personal cameras are allowed, there is strict screening, she said.

Not all of South Beach's rooftop digital cameras are focused on the topless beach-goers. Some are used to monitor the beach's weather or surf, said Jerry Weaver, systems manager at Erdman Video Systems, which provides live digital feed of the beach, among other things.

Erdman Video Systems takes pictures of the Fifth Street beach from the rooftop of a building owned by a friend. Those topless in the line of fire usually end up in cyberspace as the camera clicks every half-hour during the day.

The stock of photos, which Erdman distributes for free, is recycled weekly. Some beach voyeur sites copy the images of topless women, put them on their webpages, and charge for access to them.

While the rooftop cameras provide a large quantity of beach voyeur pictures, the better quality comes from those toting the video cameras.
Four French women who have been vacationing in Miami Beach for three months say they are routinely filmed by one such video beach voyeur.

``Every day this guy comes around with his videocam and he thinks he is being very discreet, but we spot him immediately,'' said Eve Kornfein, 47, a fitness teacher in St. Tropez. ``This really bothers me. I might sound old-fashioned, but I have my morals and I don't want my body to be on someone's television.''

One day, all of Kornfein's friends turned around toward the voyeur and wiggled their bottoms at him. ``I don't think he got the message,'' said Nathalie Chauchard, 29, who also comes from St. Tropez. ``But I am not going to cover myself from head to toe just because some guy is filming.''