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German Court Orders Man To Destroy Naked Images of Ex-Partner (bbc.com)
AmiMoJo sends this report from the BBC: Germany's highest court has ordered a man to destroy intimate photos and videos of his ex-partner because they violate her right to privacy. The Federal Court said the man, a photographer, should no longer possess naked photos and sex tapes, even if he had no intention of sharing them. The woman had originally agreed to the images but this consent stopped when the relationship ended, the court said. Germany has some of the strictest privacy laws in Europe.
How would the court ever know if he has fully complied with the order?!
This is insane! Besides an enforcement issue (Will the government check this man's belongings to make sure there are no backups?) The photos are his property as he is the photographer. This is a disturbing ruling. Now the subject gets to decide on how the artist portrays it. I modeled nude for a painting class a decade ago, can I have all these paintings destroyed?
Yep. Consent this; intimate that... this ruling is going to come back to bite a lot of people in the ass. And just wait until they try figuring out what the burden of proof is for "destroy."
Now there's only 20 billion naked chick pics left on the Internet. We need more Porn now!
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
So if they did the photo's for art, wouldn't both of them have intellectual property rights?
Yea, im bored stuck at work...
Why does a photographer need proof of commercial compensation in order for a work to have aesthetic value?
If a work has aesthetic value and all participants at the time it was created agreed to its creation (arguably a form of verbal contract) then what gives any party, other than the photographer as the creator of the content, any special rights over the content? The subject might have rights to the content if used for public exhibition or commercial purposes, but I don't see any reason why the subject, if of legal age and in a position to consent to having an image taken, should have the right to revoke that consent at a later time such that it compels the artist in question to destroy their work.
I will say this much, lots of people are bloody stupid and don't understand that they absolutely should not consent to having photos taken of them in the nude or in sexual congress unless they've fully considered both the ramifications of how they feel about those pictures potentially being seen by absolutely everyone and how this could impact their lives down the road, but that's the choice of the subject that willfully puts themselves into that position.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Inclusivity isn't PC; it's generic. Or rather, it's not needlessly over-specific. If some fuckwit (e.g. you) were to write that he has to delete pictures of his ex-girlfriend, then some other fuckwit might then ask, "But this doesn't apply to ex-wives, right, since that was a different type of agreement?" or "This doesn't apply to ex-boyfriends, since dudes have different nudity standards," or other irrelevant bullshit.
By being inclusive, you say the most. It's high-performance use of language. And if you're against performance, then you're not merely "anti-PC" but you're anti-nerd. You're a "linguistic luddite."
The trick is inclusivity without loss of correctness. (e.g. "Person," though more inclusive than "partner," would be wrong.) This ties in with how you should write a scientific hypothesis. (Again, for maximum performance, rather than PCness.) You should make your falsifiable hypothesis as broad as you can, while still maintaining falsifiability (correctness). That way, as you test it, you get the most knowledge.
If you don't understand this, then not only will you not make it as a judge/lawyer or a social commentator, but you won't make it as a scientist either. So you probably ought to drop the PC chip on your shoulder and start learning to become a less stupid person, and get over your fears that speaking non-stupidly will cause the other Idiocracy characters to say you "talk like a fag." Those idiots are missing 99% of the discussion, so it's not really surprising that their noise-polluted inferences go off in all sorts of weird random directions.
To be fair to him: this is largely a theoretical issue.
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But that's the point. Consent was granted. You can't retroactively revoke it. It's polite to do so, yes, but a stunning overreach of state power to make this a law. You consent to me taking your photo, that photo is mine, and that state will have to pry it from my cold dead hand. Zero tolerance for government censorship.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
My argument is that consent for a photograph to be taken cannot be revoked. That's why one needs to exercise good judgement when giving such consent in the first place. The existence of the photograph does not dictate the use of the photograph. The subject might legitimately be able to influence the use of the photograph or to penalize the photographer for misuse of the image and the subject, but if the subject was legally able to consent to the picture being taken and did so, the subject should not have the right to demand the destruction of the work.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Basically the German court came to a completely contradictory ruling. The man obtained the photo's legally and with consent. The person changing their mind well after the fact is like a person claiming "I was raped for the full duration of our relationship because I no longer consent.". Go read the definition of consent. You don't have to like the logical equivalency I just gave, but revoked consent for past actions is exactly why the court told this man to destroy his property.
As the AC above states, this means that the court order itself is useless after the case is over. During the case the guy consented to the courts request to destroy stuff. After the case he can revoke his consent, and the courts already ruled that it was fine to do so.
I'll give you that there should be a buffer zone for consent, especially to something like photos (sexually graphic or not). I'll further give you that consent does not count at all if a person is drugged or drunk. Those things are not what happened. Actors deal with this kind of thing all the time in their contracts. Once you consent the holding company must abide by their end of the deal , but can do with what you consented to as seen fit in agreement with consent. If the images get used in a way that was not agreed to the actor goes to court against the holding company. If there is only consent then there are NO restrictions. In the case that the holding company never does anything with the material, there would not be a court case (at least that would not be called frivolous).
So in a sense the courts ruled that this guy was guilty of a crime he never committed, in addition to ruling that consent has no meaning because you can revoke consent on past completed actions. In case I'm still too vague, that last part makes their ruling contradictory.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
What gray area? I don't know about you, but going through pictures and family photo albums as a child with my family, seeing pictures of things that happened long before I was born and even of people long-dead, kind of established to me that a photograph has the potential to be there forever. Seeing my mother's mild embarrassment over some of her fashion choices in the seventies also reaffirmed that despite some negative perceptions in the photo it may still persist.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
She waived her right to privacy when she agreed to the production of the pictures/videos. He however would be out of line and infringing on her privacy were he to share the media outside the two of them, which he apparently did.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Let's not forget Germany already has the oddest photography laws of all western countries. It is the only country that effectively makes the art of street photograph illegal: you should have consent of all people in your picture, even in public places. All pictures of the Berlin Wall being taken down would be illegal if taken today. There's a reason Germany doesn't have Google Streetview.
That's just nonsense.
The "you should have consent of all people in your picture" is a new prevailing legal paradigm how to deal with paparazzi and such. Otherwise, the person in a photograph simply has no rights whatsoever: authorship belongs to the photog, the copyright to the organizer/etc, while bystanders have no place in the copyright scheme whatsoever.
Germany and most Europe has extended it to public places mostly because the most visited public places - the sightseeing hotspots in the Europe - are also the places where local people live and work. And they lived and worked there long before the shitty tourist epidemic.
In most countries, photographs are the property of the photographer and he can do with them whatever he wants (if it is not obviously damaging to the subjects). In Germany, that's not the case; photographers need consent not only to use pictures but even to take them. In that regard, Germany is unique and against that background, this ruling is no surprise. In fact it is completely consistent with the way Germany deals with photography in general.
First. It's not only the Germany. Lots of countries - and some states in the USA - have similar laws.
Second, the need for consent in Germany has nothing to do with the law. It is just the local tradition to ask permission if person(s) feature in your photograph prominently. It was like that even before the laws made it official.
Otherwise, in a public place one generally does not need a consent. But if somebody sees that you making pictures of them, with the help of the law, they have legal standing to request the deletion of the unwanted images. And that's normal: people on the street are not pro models, why should you be able to profit of their images, if they do not want it?
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
and she no longer consents to him jerking to her private parts today.
What about his memories? Is he no longer allowed to think about her?
Could this very same ruling allow for an actress that was in porn, but then became famous to retract consent for the porn? This is the same thing you are suggesting, so think carefully about the answer.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Pics, or it didn't happen!
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
But that's the point. Consent was granted. You can't retroactively revoke it. It's polite to do so, yes, but a stunning overreach of state power to make this a law. You consent to me taking your photo, that photo is mine, and that state will have to pry it from my cold dead hand. Zero tolerance for government censorship.
Consent was granted to take the picture. Fine. Consent was granted to own the picture up to some point in time. Fine. Consent was _not_ granted by a woman for someone to posess nude pictures of her after that date. Obviously the German court values the privacy of a woman higher than her ex-boyfriends right to a piece of paper and to being a wanker.
She waived her right to privacy when she agreed to the production of the pictures/videos. He however would be out of line and infringing on her privacy were he to share the media outside the two of them, which he apparently did.
Some rights cannot be waived. And it should be obvious that the only permission that is given in that situation is for the private use as long as both sides agree.
It would be different if she had given permission to a random person, but it's obvious that permission was given based on having a relationship to the photographer, and once that relationship is gone, the permission is gone.
Just yesterday I gave permission to my garage to drive my car (to find some problem with the car). It's obvious that this permission is time limited for as long as it takes them to find the fault. And not longer.
> The judge is effectively reversing the burden of proof..
The burden of proof relates to proving facts, not matters of law.
The fact is that she does not consent to his possession of these private pictures of her. The interesting question is a question of LAW: under the applicable law, does it matter whether or not she consents? A question of law such as this is decided by a judge reading the text of the law and considering the reasoning used in prior cases. There is no fact to prove, so burden of proof isn't relevant. The judge is deciding whether German law allows him to keep "her" private photos without her consent. The facts (which can be proven or disproven) are not in dispute.
And then the Judge looks at the contracts, slowly shaking their head, and points towards the door.
See what happens when you finish a thought instead of an almost mindless knee-jerk action?
Short and simplified answer: Taking paparazzi photos in private situations and publishing them is already illegal in Germany.
Bad for the yellow press, but no big deal for the freedom of press (other laws and decisions are another matter entirely). The decision was made in compliance with basic rights that also apply to celebrities.