Court Rules It's Ok To Tag Pics On Facebook Without Permission

neoflexycurrent writes "A federal court has ruled that photos of a woman on Facebook showing her drinking were properly used as evidence in a child custody case. She had argued she was identified without permission. But the court rejected that argument. In reaching that decision, the court made the interesting observation that: '[t]here is nothing within the law that requires [one's] permission when someone takes a picture and posts it on a Facebook page. There is nothing that requires [one's] permission when she [is] "tagged" or identified as a person in those pictures.'"

Comments

Re:tagging is fine

[Moryath]

The phrase you are looking for is "easy cases make bad law.

For those who are unclear: the WORST law, in terms of setting precedents to be relied on later, comes from cases in which a defendant is "obviously guilty of something" or just plain unsympathetic. The end result is a jury ruling on the emotional bounds of what they are presented, rather than on facts in the case, or in the appellate side, a bunch of judges making "fuck it we can see they are guilty why are you bothering us with this crap" rulings.

Ironically, the counterargument - hard cases make bad law - is also valid. Hard cases require very case-specific rulings and legal hair-splitting in order to arrive at the verdict or appellate review result, but then inevitably someone comes along and tries to apply them to completely different situations as precedent.