I don’t know if there a factual answer to this, but if not, please move as needed.
You are an adult who when you were an adult took consensual nude pictures of an unknown over 21 actress. She signed you the rights to do whatenver the hell you want with them- publish them, whatever, no restrictions. Five years later she is famous and you decide to sell them. You check all the news outlets, entertainment shows and pornographers and the best offer you get is one million. Now you are not a complete bastard and want to avoid shame for this person if possible, so you offer her the chance to buy them for one million. Is this illegal and why?
Questions like this are why lawyers make big bucks.
IANALNDIPOOTV.
It doesn’t seem to be illegal on the face of it, In a creepy sort of way it’s a gentlemanly move; she’s not blindsided by sudden publication, and has an opportunity to lawyer up while ‘considering’.
or
Of course it’s illegal, you’re using threat of public embarrasment to extort a ridiculous amount of money.
Are you about to be a millionaire?
He owned the rights to them, for which he paid her. He was offering to sell those rights back to her.
IANAL at all, but I would think that the fact that you could get a million bucks anyway is irrelevant - it’s still extortion, since you are saying “If you do not give me a million dollars, I will cause you reputational harm.”
I known nothing about the law of extortion that I didn’t learn from Otto’s link, but ISTM your best strategy is just to give very wide publicity to your intended sale and, without specifically approaching her in any way, make sure word gets to the actress. Then just sell to the highest bidder.
That way you are not making a threat: you are going to sell regardless. I have no idea if this would work but it makes sense to me.
That’s sort of where I got the question from. I was trying to think of a legal way this guy could’ve done what he did. If you legally own the rights, offering the woman the chance to buy them seems like a nice thing to do, and you could go to jail for it, but if you just sell them to Screw magazine, you get the same money and you’re in the clear, it seems a bit odd.
It makes sense if you have photos not worth anything to anyone else, but if you had a contract by a third party agreeing to pay one million, what then if you offered them to her for less money? A judge couldn’t say you were trying to get more money than you could elsewhere if you had proof you were willing to take less to give them to her, right?
It seems to me that if it is legal to offer them to person X, then it is legal to offer them to person Y. Why should the subject matter be a factor?
Nevermind. Covered in the Diaz article.