Death, Photos and Internet Privacy

[Agelastus]

Who'd ever heard of the Georgian luger before he died?  This guy wasn't prominent and that a news channel showed footage of him dying was ghoulish, nothing more.  I mean it's really despicable in my opinion.

He wasn't prominent before the Olympics, but the Olympics made him prominent, and thus news. At which point he was in the same position as Roland Ratzenberger at Imola. Who had several TV cameras pointed at his car as he lay their dead and medics worked on him.

It's not footage I particularly would want to see, but it is newsworthy.

[Sheilbh]

It's not footage I particularly would want to see, but it is newsworthy.

But when I think it's him dying it's not his privacy that's being intruded on, but his family's.

[Agelastus]

It's not footage I particularly would want to see, but it is newsworthy.

But when I think it's him dying it's not his privacy that's being intruded on, but his family's.

It's difficult to argue a privacy right for the family when you have exposed yourself at a such a public event. Consider the Hillsborough footage that was broadcast at the time even in the absence of 24 hour news channels.

[Sheilbh]

It's difficult to argue a privacy right for the family when you have exposed yourself at a such a public event. Consider the Hillsborough footage that was broadcast at the time even in the absence of 24 hour news channels.

I think there's a difference between monumental death - death en masse - and focusing on one individual, watching CPR try and fail while the camera in the helicopter hovers above.  It's the difference, I suppose, between seeing the twin towers collapse and watching an individual who jumped out plummeting down.  I find the latter far more difficult to deal with and unpleasant.

Similarly I suppose it's like getting footage of shells being fired into a city or bombs going off - you know that people are dying and that you're in effect seeing it but that's not the focus of the shot - that's not its purpose.  The only purpose of filiming an individual dying is to watch one person dying.

[alfred russel]

"But it feels good knowing that at least now, at least in California, our case will (help) prevent this from happening to anybody else."

Is there coaching in law school to tell your clients to say crap like this? A settlement from California isn't going to stop a 19 year old from posting pictures from a crash.

It won't stop them, but it allows a quick remedy in court, where before this was not possible.

How is a financial settlement a remedy for this? Counseling--I agree. Cash? Not so much.

[Martinus]

I think it is debatable whether a "news" footage can be given the same kind of protection as information as such. We have got used to equate a film or a picture with "news" but this is not necessarily the case (and, nb, for Americans, this is for obvious reasons not what your founding fathers were considering, when they were putting the freedom of speech protections into the constitution).

A film footage or a picture is often used to illustrate a story, and this is fine as long as the footage is non-controversial and noone involved directly protests, but if there is an opposition (due to privacy, protection of image etc.), this should really only kick in when there is a public interest associated with presenting the footage. This could be the case of, say, showing a footage as an evidence of some event that the person participating in it is denying, but I fail to see how this would apply to a situation like the Georgian athlete or the car crash victim.

[Agelastus]

I think there's a difference between monumental death - death en masse - and focusing on one individual, watching CPR try and fail while the camera in the helicopter hovers above.  It's the difference, I suppose, between seeing the twin towers collapse and watching an individual who jumped out plummeting down.  I find the latter far more difficult to deal with and unpleasant.

Both of which were on the news, as I recall. The event overtakes the individual in this case. It is difficult to watch, but still a part of the story. And the overall story in this instance is the Olympics.

Similarly I suppose it's like getting footage of shells being fired into a city or bombs going off - you know that people are dying and that you're in effect seeing it but that's not the focus of the shot - that's not its purpose.  The only purpose of filiming an individual dying is to watch one person dying.

Dying is news. I don't see anything wrong with the camera hovering over the site of the biggest bit of Games news of the day. As I said, it's no different in essence to what has happened at other sporting events. And what would you have said if they had hovered over him, shown all the footage, and he had lived? Would you be equally disgusted?

What the patrolmen did at this car accident though is disgusting. If a reporter had taken this footage and put it on the evening news, people might have been offended but a car crash is news, as anyone watching local television in Britain will know. Taking pictures for the titillation of your friends or anyone else who happens to see the images is something else again. And that is what the patrolmen did.

[dps]

In saying that the family of the dead luger could sue NBC by the logic used in the case of the girl killed in the car crash, I was exaggerating a bit, because one thing that US law does recognize is that there is more legitimate newsworthiness in stories about public figures than stories involving the average person.  A random car accident victim and her family are going to have more protection of their privacy than a politician or a prominent athlete.

Who'd ever heard of the Georgian luger before he died?  This guy wasn't prominent and that a news channel showed footage of him dying was ghoulish, nothing more.  I mean it's really despicable in my opinion.

True, but as Agelastus points out, it was the circumstances/venue of his death that made him (essentially) a public figure.  An athlete dying at the Olympics is big news on an international level, whereas a teenage dying in a car crash is local news at best.

Also, what would have happened if the crash had occurred during competition, rather than in practice?  There's a chance that the accident and its aftermath might have been broadcast live.  At that point, there would have possibly been even more focus on attempts to revive him--you can't really expect NBC to realize instantly that there was no hope and cut away.

[Martinus]

Also, what would have happened if the crash had occurred during competition, rather than in practice?  There's a chance that the accident and its aftermath might have been broadcast live.  At that point, there would have possibly been even more focus on attempts to revive him--you can't really expect NBC to realize instantly that there was no hope and cut away.

This is a rather fallacious line of reasoning - only because sometimes we cannot avoid doing something by accident does not mean it's fine to do it deliberately. 

[dps]

Also, what would have happened if the crash had occurred during competition, rather than in practice?  There's a chance that the accident and its aftermath might have been broadcast live.  At that point, there would have possibly been even more focus on attempts to revive him--you can't really expect NBC to realize instantly that there was no hope and cut away.

This is a rather fallacious line of reasoning - only because sometimes we cannot avoid doing something by accident does not mean it's fine to do it deliberately. 

Well, that wasn't exactly my point.  My point was that it is a legitimate news story.

And, just to be clear, I don't think NBC should have shown the footage.  IMO, that was poor judgement on their part.  But I'd rather that they have the freedom to make such judgements than have the government make tha call for them, even if they do get them wrong at times.

[jimmy olsen]

What the patrolmen did at this car accident though is disgusting. If a reporter had taken this footage and put it on the evening news, people might have been offended but a car crash is news, as anyone watching local television in Britain will know. Taking pictures for the titillation of your friends or anyone else who happens to see the images is something else again. And that is what the patrolmen did.

If agree, this decision doesn't seem to infringe on freedom of the press to me.

[Martinus]

Question to Americans (especially lawyers and law students): does your law have the concept of "image protection", i.e. that a picture showing a person cannot be published without their consent (or that of their legal heirs, in case of a dead person) unless some of exceptions apply (e.g. a public figure, or a person in a picture is just a part of the crowd, rather than showed as an individual etc.)? We have this concept in Poland, and this would deal sufficiently with most of the cases of someone publishing a "death rattle" photo.

[Martinus]

What the patrolmen did at this car accident though is disgusting. If a reporter had taken this footage and put it on the evening news, people might have been offended but a car crash is news, as anyone watching local television in Britain will know. Taking pictures for the titillation of your friends or anyone else who happens to see the images is something else again. And that is what the patrolmen did.

If agree, this decision doesn't seem to infringe on freedom of the press to me.

There is no such thing as "freedom of the press". There is only freedom of speech. If a newspaper or a tv programme could show a picture, any internet blogger or user should be allowed to do so as well (subject only to IP  rights, of course).

In fact, broadcasting a picture on national television should be subject to bigger restrictions, privacy-wise, than just sending it in an email, because of the public impact. That's why many jurisdictions have a concept of "public interest" which for example precludes the media from publishing gossips from private life of the celebrities if no public interest can be showed, but do not prevent people gossiping about them in private, as long as they are true (see Max Moseley's case, for example).

[Jaron]

We do in the US.

[DontSayBanana]

There is no such thing as "freedom of the press". There is only freedom of speech. If a newspaper or a tv programme could show a picture, any internet blogger or user should be allowed to do so as well (subject only to IP  rights, of course).

In fact, broadcasting a picture on national television should be subject to bigger restrictions, privacy-wise, than just sending it in an email, because of the public impact. That's why many jurisdictions have a concept of "public interest" which for example precludes the media from publishing gossips from private life of the celebrities if no public interest can be showed, but do not prevent people gossiping about them in private, as long as they are true (see Max Moseley's case, for example).

He's talking about the US, not Poland.  We're guaranteed freedom of and from religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to peacefully assemble (protest), and the right to "petition the government for redress" (limits sovereign immunity in court) in the first amendment.

I think for the image to qualify as a "freedom of the press" issue, the picture would need to be necessary to underscore the information that's being reported.  A picture simply taken for shock value of an accident that was already well-reported probably doesn't qualify.