Privacy of your image online

[Jen Smith]

I posted this question in "intellectual property" and got a helpful answer from DivGradCurl, but there are loopholes in their answer related to privacy and control of one's image for commercial use. So here I am posting it in a different forum, because I guess these forums are pretty strictly segregated by expertise, yesno?

What is the name of your state? ILLINOIS

I'm writing a book in which two characters have a conversation. One is a private citizen, one a porn actress. The porn actress learns that, during a one-night-stand date, when she was passed out drunk, the private citizen was photographed by her date and the photographs were posted to the internet without her permission. The porn actress says, "Why didn't you report it if you didn't want the pictures up? I have to log on and report stuff about once a month." The private citizen didn't know this could be done. "Besides, you're, uh, a porn star." "And, duh, my image is for sale. So people who post my image without permission are stealing."

My questions are:is protected?


Is there such a site where a private citizen can complain if one's image has been posted without one's permission, in circumstances such as these?

Can someone who sells her own image protect it in this way, the way intellectual property
If not, I want to put a disclaimer in my book to that effect. It's fiction, but you'd be amazed at what people will believe, even if they read it in a novel.

 

[racer72]

These forums are to help folks with real legal problems, not to help those writing books or doing homework. There are other forums on the internet that can help you.

 

[quincy]

Racer72 is right that you can find most of this information either by using the search feature in the yellow bar at the top of this page and reviewing answers given to others on the subjects you are researching, or by doing a little bit of googling.

The legal issues that your characters are dealing with involve mostly privacy laws, with a bit of copyright law rights with the photo. Defamation issues could come into play if your character was photographed while passed out, and the photo was published without permission and damaged her reputation. Seeing as how your character is a porn actress, however, defamation would probably not enter into this particular situation.

The photographer owns the copyright to the photo he took. However the porn actress owns the right to her image. In order for the photographer to publish the photo, he must get a release from the subject of his photo - or face an invasion of privacy action. In the case of the porn actress, there is a "right of publicity" action, as well.

Everyone owns the rights to their own image, and everyone has the right to determine how, when, where or if their image is used in a commercial or public way. For instance, I can take a photo of you (as long as you are in a public place or, if in a private place, you give me permission to take your photo), and I own the copyright to the photo. But I cannot use this image of you to profit off of it in any way (say to advertise a service, or a product like Maxwell House Coffee or to sell it as art work or something) without your permission. I can obtain your permission through a "release".

If I publish the photo I took of you on a web site without your permission, you can contact the webhost and have the image removed. You may need to go to court to get an "injunction", which is a court order commanding or preventing an action. In your book's case, the injunction would be to command the removal of the photo from the website. If the photo were to appear in a magazine, you could potentially sue the magazine over its use.

Google DMCA, injunction, model release for photographers, defamation.
Go to www.copyright.gov for more information on copyrights.
Google "privacy rights" for whatever state you are having your characters reside in.
Google "right of publicity" for information on what that entails.

Part of writing a book is doing research and it is good that you want your characters and their situations to be realistic. This, however, is a legal forum designed to help people with real legal problems. It is hard for the volunteers here to handle book research and school homework assignments and hypothetical situations with the small amount of time most of us have available, while still doing a service to the people who come here needing real legal advice with real legal problems.

Good luck with your book.