Law in the Internet Society

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FarayiMafotiSecondPaper 3 - 20 Dec 2011 - Main.FarayiMafoti
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-- FarayiMafoti - 17 Dec 2011
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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 is only 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.
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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.
 

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