Nick, I wonder whether Facebook has actually passed on photos to the media, or have the media just assumed that they can copy them?

Nothing on the internet even suspecting it and I’ve decided I’m thinking a company regularly making $10-100 million-plus business deals wouldn’t see the value in it. How much could a set of photos be worth weighed against the scale of negative publicity if the practice was (very quickly) found out? It’d be very different to trading user info behind the scenes. Besides, it’s unlikely a celebrity would ever post anything that sensational on Facebook.

So yeah, I think the media have just assumed they can copy them.

The problem with copyright (as I see it) is you’ve given Facebook an unlimited license and since the content was then sourced from Facebook, it’d only be Facebook who could follow it up in court. And why would they ever do that The media will always reference ‘Stephanie’s Facebook photos’ etc so it’s endless publicity for them with no downside. Responsibility will always fall back on the user – ‘if you didn’t want your photos to go public, you should have set your account to private’ or ‘if you can’t trust your friends, don’t upload your photos’. Stephanie could now request News Online remove her photos from their gallery of course…but I don’t think she sees any need to. They’re not shocking and she originally made them publicly available anyway. Plus she’s become an international FHM star…when did the Daily Telegraph start calling them ‘lads’ mags’, or are they expecting a lot of international hits during the Olympics?

In relation to the Privacy Act, Facebook’s Terms of Use mean you have ‘consented to the disclosure’ (as I see it). You can’t argue clickthrough – people use Facebook for weeks/months/years – there’s no excuse for not giving the Terms of Use a proper read in all that time.

ALRC Report regarding Facebook/social networking – same as Darryl @ 31 – if I’m reading correctly, it doesn’t look like much will change at all for adults – though a lot more in there for kids. Recommendations for more education, clearer disclosures of Terms of Use on sign-up (multiple OKs), default to ‘private’ settings on signup, better security, more education for kids, social networking sites to better screen for kids, parental consent via credit card etc to sign up to children’s networking sites, parental consent for third-party disclosure of information of children, children not be searchable on site or from engines, more international collaboration and partnerships etc etc. Mainly preventative measures for adults.

From what I read though, I liked the general tone of the report. Nothing heavy-handed…or over the top ridiculous for kids, just an onus on the companies marketing to them to clean up their act.

On the tail of Nick D’arcy and with Kieran Perkins now revealing there’s a ‘binge culture’ amongst Australian swimmers.

Swimmers are probably pitched to children (and parents) more than any other sportspeople, breakfast cereal, milk, muesli bar ads etc. Not to mention – as I write this I just watched an anti-alcohol ad featuring an Australian swimmer (‘drink in moderation/live life’).

Regarding Reba and Adam, given the photos they chose to run with, I figured the Telegraph was having a go at some very lightweight and tacky Confidential-style political scandalising. Which then quickly becomes fodder for the likes of this site.

1. given, done, bestowed, or obtained without charge or payment; free; voluntary.
2. being without apparent reason, cause, or justification: a gratuitous insult.
3. Law. given without receiving any return value.

I’m assuming you attribute the second meaning of gratuitous to my post, as numbers 1 and 3 are also applicable to the Rice photo that accompanies your post.

My justification is that this photo is now as much a part of the public Rice package as your ‘authorised’ one is, and as well as being part of the reason why her story is compelling to media. It was not intended as a deliberate insult to Stephanie Rice abut rather a deliberate counterpoint to the real point of my piece which was about Ossetia.

Shorter Strocchi. Umm.. see above. Really this is beyond parody Jack. Unless yer just taking the piss out of Kim Il Sung. Which I now sadly doubt.

Returning to the original point of the post. I have a simple solution. Legalise dueling.

“gratuitous”? You’re wrong, but I’m grateful!

Derek

http://nebuchadnezzarwoollyd.blogspot.com/2008/08/stephanie-rice-and-south-ossetia-of.html

I illustrated this one with a picture of her in a swim suit which she makes available for media.

With Mosley/Rice (1)/Rice (2) – I’m really going down the scale and then up again of invasions of privacy. I think in the FB case, what happened was someone tipped off the media about the FB photos and then they were published. I’d like to see less willingness to do this sort of thing.

I’m also trying to get to the bigger issues here around what constitutes the public interest. Does it matter to anyone if Rice goes to a costume party and wears a “sexy” costume? I’m also interested in how the media’s practices impact differently on women.

And I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me why the identity of the NSW Health Minister’s latest boyfriend is a “need for the public to know” thing.

I agree with just about everything Tigtog wrote at @19, but we’re bumping up against the difference between the lay definition(s) of privacy and the legal definitions, which the ALRC report discusses in Part A.

I’ve only skimmed the top level and read a few details, but there doesn’t seem to be much here that would effect the situation with Stephanie Rice, either the reporting about her boyfriend or the facebook picture business. (But I’ve just skimmed, so please tell me if I’ve missed the good bits. I did do a text search for ‘facebook’ and read those bits :^)

Let me put my own cards on the table – I’m pretty pessimistic about the future of privacy. Privacy is a socially defined concept that’s developed in concert with information technology, including photography. Technology has shaped our idea of privacy and technology is going to break it. I worry that attempts to protect privacy in the digital information age is going to work about as well as other forms of digital rights management and that the proposed solutions are going to leave us worse off and less prepared for the future that’s coming.

I’m quite influenced by David Brin’s book “The Transparent Society” – not wholly won over by it, but it’s dammed hard to poke a hole in his arguments. He’s got a neat analogy with being in a ‘normal’ restaurant v one with paper screens around all the tables. You’re got more privacy when no one can see you, which means you can make serious efforts to eavesdrop without anyone noticing, so you’ve less privacy, thanks to the efforts made to enhance privacy.

Myself, I always post under my real name these days, having written some lamentable things pseudonymously back in the day. ‘Be sure your sins will find you out’, that’s my motto. That and ‘the road the Hell is paved with good intentions’. *sigh* Just as well I identify as an optimist these days. :^)

d

Its probably true that personal relations b/w individual and individual should remain privy, if only to circumscribe a space for the soul.

But its truer still that the individual should hide nothing of importance from the institutional, since this embodies his obligation to be true to his fellows.

“Privacy is dead, deal with it.”

Sun MicroSystems CEO Scott McNealy 2000

Lets leave it to the lawyers? You say the scariest things at times, Mark. Someone could right a rather hefty book detailing why that view is reckless and naive.

As Adrien and others have noted, any legislation that aims to protect privacy will undoubtedly be abused by those with the means to hire a team of top-notch lawyers unless it is extremely precise and narrowly worded.

My twelve years experience working as a legislative delegate in the Australian Public Service has left me rather more cynical about legalism than yourself.

Well, I don’t know anything about Italian law but it seems to me that the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission are fairly narrowly targeted.

I also know nothing about Italian law, but I’ve read the relevant parts of the ALRC report and they aren’t.

If you can’t see how the rich and powerful could use legislation based on the recommendations to shut down anyone who discovers something inconvenient about them and has the gall to want to actually tell someone you’ve rocks where your brains ought be.

It’s worth bearing in mind that blogs such as LP would be caught up by the proposed laws. Got your set of privacy principles ready to roll?

Let’s debate the rights and wrongs of the issue and let the lawyers sort out the rest.

Exposing hypocrisy or corruption is rather different from merely nosing about in the hopes of finding something salaciously titillating about someone with a famous face,

I agree with you Tictog but the problem is how do introduce laws that can provide something more nuanced than you can/you can’t? It seems to me that in doing so you are asking parliament and/or the courts to limit the freedom of the press to only worthy things. What’s worthy and who decides.
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On a case by case basis it’s easy. Kevin Rudd is having an affair with the Chinese ambassador – obviously hard news and in the public interest to know (sorry Kevvie strictly hypothetical old bean).
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On the other hand Ms Tanbaum and Mr Hartpex, this month’s hottest Home and Away starlet decide to go on a camping holiday and some greasy creep with a telephot lens takes 362 shots of them making love in the forest. Obviously not worthy.
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But when you write laws trying to conceieve of general categories that will mostly make these kinds of distinctions you get into trouble. And of course there’s the possibility that Kevvie’ll hire some megabrain’d silk to twist ‘em around the way they’re not supposed to go.
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Is a puzzlement.

I,m a bit of a layman on this but I dont think the Press has any right to poe about in some ones personal and private life,I mean some ones sex life or whether they are screwing the woman next door.

What if this person is a massively influential figure in society, the representative of an organized religion and an advocate of making, say, adultery punishable by death?
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That’s hard news and the public should know it. See the problem?

I’m leery of legislation against press being nosy per se for exactly the reason you describe, but there needs to be better guidelines than simply either they can or they can’t. Exposing hypocrisy or corruption is rather different from merely nosing about in the hopes of finding something salaciously titillating about someone with a famous face, and the press shouldn’t just shrug off criticism for wrongdoing in one case by pointing to how important it is that they be allowed to do it in another.

I,m a bit of a layman on this but I dont think the Press has any right to poe about in some ones personal and private life,I mean some ones sex life or whether they are screwing the woman next door.

What if this person is a massively influential figure in society, the representative of an organized religion and an advocate of making, say, adultery punishable by death?
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That’s hard news and the public should know it. See the problem?

Except Facebook hopefully not wanting to earn a reputation for abusing privilege and screwing over their users!

I also wonder how it would work with regard to printed media, where the copies can’t be removed after license expiry. Would it matter as long as they were made while the license was in effect?