Craig Brittain (Revenge Porn King) Sues For Use of Image

retroworks writes "Washington Post reporter Caitlin Dewey leads with, "Revenge-porn impresario Craig Brittain is learning the hard way that karma is a real witch." The report states that the Federal Trade Commission has settled a complaint against Brittain, whose defunct site, "Is Anybody Down" was accused of unfair business practices. From the article: "The site paid its bills by soliciting women's nude photos on Craigslist and/or from their exes, publishing the photos without the women's permission (and often with their names and phone numbers attached), and then charging fees of $200 to $500 to take the photos down." Brittain agreed to destroy the image and never operate a revenge porn site again. However, On Feb. 9, "Brittain filed a takedown request to Google, demanding that the search engine stop linking to nearly two dozen URLs — including a number of news articles, and files on the case from the FTC — because they used photos of him and information about him without his permission." Ars Technica explains. "In this instance, fair use and general First Amendment principles are on Google's and the media's side."

Comments

Sulfur

[Limekiller42]

Is this guy even a little concerned that there might be a hell?

Re:Sulfur

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you not concerned about the anti-sexual religious morality police that create such an aura of shame and disgust around sex?

While I have no doubt that what he was doing was unethical, I have more of a problem with the fact that society chooses to stigmatise sexuality. A picture of your dick or your pussy should be no more of a problem than a picture of your face. In a healthy community, this would be little more than a personal data protection matter.

Re:Sulfur

[binarylarry]

http://www.pbfcomics.com/271/

Re:Sulfur

[Opportunist]

If there is, and if I was Satan, I'd be worried to be evicted when that guy croaks.

Re:Sulfur

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the real world, like it or not it is a problem for the victims. Come back in another century. Progress marches on.

Progress is marching backwards. When I was a kid, you could find Playboy at the local grocery magazine rack. When I watch the morning news there is inevitably a half dozen "sex crime" stories. In the seventies, streaking was common and now it gets you put on a sex offender list. A friend of mine was arrested for taking a leak behind a bush walking home one night and was charged with sex assault because it was witnessed by a mother from her window who had her daughter with her. He ended up killing himself before he went to trial.

The people in charge are the sixties generation. WTF?????

Re:Sulfur

[Anonymous Coward]

It is generally well established that correspondence between two individuals is private and that for one of the parties to share that correspondence it is considered appropriate to ask the other for permission prior to sharing.

This is generally considered the norm and typically if you publish someones private material shared with you without their permission you would lose in the civil suit.

The problem is with the third party, not the recipient. If I give the material to a publishing company and they post it it is much harder to hold them liable for any breach as they were not involved in the original exchange. It's very similar to prosecuting someone for receipt of stolen goods. If they had no knowledge the goods were stolen then they are almost never held liable.

Re:Sulfur

[Austerity Empowers]

Blatant extortion. He's not trying to make the world better, he was trying to hold these people hostage for some bucks precisely because of our attitude about sex. If there is a hell, he belongs there.

Re:He's one smart cookie

[sumdumass]

Not really.

Despite there being more than one set of principles in law in play here, usually a voluntary settlement includes some sort of admission of guilt which could prevent any appeals without showing some form of durress outside the penalties of law being faced. Its really difficult to win an appeal or even have an appeal heard when it involves a settlement.

The law makes no allowances for irony.

[hey!]

Nor should it.

So this guy has *exactly* the same privacy rights as any other public figure has, neither more nor less. These rights are fewer than those enjoyed by non-public figures, but they are not zero. He can't stop people from using his image and name, any more than Kim Kardashian can. While in a sense she owns her public persona, she doesn't own every image of her that is taken in public. In other words people can't use her image to sell things as if she endorsed them, but they can use and even sell the image itself.

If this guy owns the copyright to an image, he can reasonably file a DMCA takedown. If the image is taken in a situation in which a public figure would have a reasonable expectation of privacy (e.g. inside his house), then he can take other legal steps, even though allowing that to happen would be poetic justice. The law doesn't deal in poetic justice, and judges aren't allowed to stop enforcing the law just because it would be cool.

Re:The law makes no allowances for irony.

[BarbaraHudson]

Only the creator - the person who took the photo - owns copyright to it, unless there has been a transfer of copyright executed. So, whoever took his picture has copyright to it, unless it was a work for hire for him. On a side note, I doubt he's got all the paperwork for each of those photos he posted.

Re:The law makes no allowances for irony.

[taustin]

You're confusing copyright with privacy rights, which are very, very different. He's a newsworthy figure. They were not. He chose to be newsworthy. They did not. He's not in the same position as the women he extorted.

Frankly, the guy belongs in prison for extortion.

Re:The law makes no allowances for irony.

[hey!]

Copyright is not necessarily the only law which applies here. It is possible, for example, to have copyright on works you have no right to distribute. If I write a libelous story about you, I *own* that story, but I can't publish it because it is libelous -- unless I alter the story so you aren't obviously recognizable.

IANAL, but I suspect that what matters here is the subject's "expectation of privacy". Even if you got her permission to take her photo with the understanding it's for your *personal* use, she probably has a reasonable expectation that you won't post it on a public website. In that case after a breakup you would retain copyright and the right to use the image for your personal use (although really how pathetic is that?), but you don't suddenly gain the right to share it with the world if that's not the terms under which she agreed to let you take her picture.

Re:The law makes no allowances for irony.

[KingOfBLASH]

Not completely true. There's a reason if you do a photo shoot with a model you ask them for a model release (right to use their image). Not every image is copyright to the photographer. And I have quite a few citations.

Of course, whether or not you need a release is a complex issue, but if you don't want lawyers sorting it out the best is to err on the side of caution.

Re:The law makes no allowances for irony.

[hey!]

It's well established that a person may become an "involuntary public figure" -- someone who does not intentionally thrust himself into the public sphere, but whose actions (or inactions) a reasonable person would expect to draw public scrutiny.

So the question is whether becoming a "revenge-porn" impressario is something a reasonable person would expect to draw public scrutiny. You be the judge.

Re:The law makes no allowances for irony.

[avgjoe62]

What you are looking for here is a model release, which lays out exactly what can and cannot be done with a picture taken in private. From the wiki article above:

No release is required for publication, as news, of a photo taken of an identifiable person when the person is in a public place. In general, no release is required for publication of a photo taken of an identifiable person when the person is in a public space unless the use is for trade or direct commercial use, which is defined as promoting a product, service, or idea.[1] Publication of a photo of an identifiable person, even if taken when the person is in a public place, for commercial use, without a model release signed by that person, can result in civil liability for whoever publishes the photograph.[2]

Note that no model release is needed for the act of taking the photograph. Rather, if needed, the model release applies to the publication of the photograph. Liability rests solely with the publisher, except under special conditions. The photographer is typically not the publisher of the photograph, but usually licenses the photograph to someone else to publish. It is typical for the photographer to obtain the model release because he is merely present at the time and can get it, but also because it gives him more opportunity to license the photograph later to a party who wishes to publish it. Nevertheless, unless a photo is actually published, no model release is required.

Note that the issue of model release forms and liability waivers is a legal area related to privacy and is separate from copyright. Also, the need for model releases pertains to public use of the photos: i.e., publishing them, commercially or not. The act of taking a photo of someone in a public setting without a model release, or of viewing or non-commercially showing such a photo in private, generally does not create legal exposure, at least in the United States.

Re:The law makes no allowances for irony.

[radarskiy]

"Either revenge porn is illegal because people, including this man, have a right to control their image or pictures are the sole property of those that created it and revenge porn is as legal as posting pictures of this jackass in the paper."

Irrelevant, since the complaint was not about revenge porn per se. The FTC went after him for "unfair business practices", i.e. he was using the images for extortion.

Re:In the US

[JimMcc]

Interesting comment to post as an Anonymous Coward. If you feel that strongly you should be posting from a username which is your true legal first and last name and include your phone number as well. Oh, and to prove you really believe what you are saying, post a compromising nude photo of yourself as well. Umm, on second thought skip the photo.

Yeah, yeah, I know, don't feed the trolls.

Re:This time

[BarbaraHudson]

Get real. If a woman had been running the revenge porn site, it wouldn't have changed anything. Blackmail is blackmail. Extortion is extortion. None of the media have posted nude pictures of him and said "Give me $500 and we'll take them down."

Why bring that up ?

[aepervius]

Even in the sex-free-est society, revenge porn is not seen as being good. The guy is an asshole (and anybody having posted photo there without consent) and may his reputation follow him around. This has nothing to do with sex being shameful or not, and everything to do with consent and revenge.

Re:I hope they roast his nuts on a spit...

[radarskiy]

This is why we can't photograph nice things.

He's trolling and you fell for it

[Wrath0fb0b]

You really don't think he understands the irony of his request?
You really don't think he understands (or was explained) the flimsy legal basis for his request?
You really don't think he knew that the headline "Man who violated privacy upset about privacy violation" was going to spread like crack?

Please do not feed the trolls
Please do not reward the media whores.