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FarayiMafotiSecondPaper 4 - 19 Jan 2012 - Main.FarayiMafoti
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-- FarayiMafoti - 17 Dec 2011 | | | REFLECTIONS ON PRIVACY | |
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< | If we keep the conversation within the purview of traditional forms of obscenity, however, there may be avenues of legal recourse under civil law for violations of privacy. People have already hacked the Kinect to digitally recreate themselves in various ways. For example, this clip features people stepping into an outdoor studio consisting of three hacked Kinects and a 3-D printer, and stepping out to nearly instantaneous sculptures of themselves: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-04/video-three-hacked-kinects-and-one-3-d-printer-turn-you-your-own-souvenir. If someone wearing a Kinect-esque camera could record a high-resolution image of a your entire body as you walk past them on the street, it would only be a matter of time before your digital image is used for sexually themed content, human nature being what it is. While the “misappropriation of likeness” is considered to be a form of privacy invasion under common law, its universe is too restricted: one generally has to prove that their image has “commercial value” and has been used for commercial purposes. Intrusion into seclusion makes for perhaps the better cause of action if someone creates a nude digital rendering of you. Intrusion into seclusion is defined as the unsolicited entry upon the solitude or seclusion of another person or private affairs or concerns of another. While this cause of action is typically realized in the context of paparazzi photographing celebrities, it can manifest when there are unwarranted sensory intrusions such as eavesdropping, wiretapping, and visual or photographic spying, which would apply here as it does in the “sexting” context. In any case, while I concede that the changing technological climate does have the potential to raise questions regarding liability in violent-entertainment cases, hybridizing the obscene and the violent into the “obscenely violent” in order to skirt First Amendment concerns is not the answer. | >
> | Given the court's difficulty in clarifying the ground rules of obscenity (i.e. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once stated (in Jacobellis v. Ohio) that he could not define obscenity but "I know it when I see it"), perhaps matters that may involve the application of obscenity laws should be addressed using privacy law. This approach, however, seems more availing in the context of sexually themed augmented content as opposed to the purely violent content that was discussed earlier. People have already hacked the Kinect to digitally recreate themselves in various ways. For example, this clip features people stepping into an outdoor studio consisting of three hacked Kinects and a 3-D printer, and stepping out to nearly instantaneous sculptures of themselves: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-04/video-three-hacked-kinects-and-one-3-d-printer-turn-you-your-own-souvenir. If someone wearing a Kinect-esque camera could record a high-resolution image of a your entire body as you walk past them on the street, it would only be a matter of time before your digital image is used for sexually themed content, human nature being what it is. While the “misappropriation of likeness” is considered to be a form of privacy invasion under common law, its universe is too restricted: one generally has to prove that their image has “commercial value” and has been used for commercial purposes. Intrusion into seclusion makes for perhaps the better cause of action if someone creates a nude digital rendering of you. Intrusion into seclusion is defined as the unsolicited entry upon the solitude or seclusion of another person or private affairs or concerns of another. While this cause of action is typically realized in the context of paparazzi photographing celebrities, it can manifest when there are unwarranted sensory intrusions such as eavesdropping, wiretapping, and visual or photographic spying, which would apply here as it does in the “sexting” context. But the claim seems less likely to succeed if the image remained clothed; in that case, nothing secret has been intruded upon. In any case, while I concede that the changing technological climate does have the potential to raise questions regarding liability in violent-entertainment cases, hybridizing the obscene and the violent into the “obscenely violent” in order to skirt First Amendment concerns is not the answer. | | |
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