Up until now, the Supreme Court of the United States has said that they don’t. But that may all change with the new conservative court. That is why I ask that now.
I have to tell you all, I was racking my brain trying to find a cite for this. Famous figures don’t have the same expectation of privacy, according to the SCOTUS to-date. I wasn’t sure how to parse it though. I just remembered the legal phrase ‘absence of malice’. But the only that connected me to was the 1981 film. So if anyone can find a cite, please post it.
But anyways, public figures and (the same) expectations of privacy. Do they have have it? Should they?
In Sullivan, the Court found that false and defamatory statements about an elected official were not - by themselves - libelous, unless they had been made with actual malice. That is, “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” Butts extended the ruling to all “public figures.”
Famous people can still sue for libel. But they have the burden of proving that the news outlet not only A) was wrong and B) the person suffered damages from the error, but also C) the news organization was either deliberate in its error or recklessly failed to verify the story.
I for one do think that Famous people do have some right of privacy, whether paparazzi camped on lawn, or harassing them at meal, going through their garbage, etc
I think the OP is confusing two concepts. The first is protection from slander and libel, and the second is the host of invasion of privacy torts.
It is correct for the reasons previous posters have stated that the Supreme Court has outlined a heightened standard for slander and libel against public figures. The idea is that we don’t want to chill the free press or free public discourse about people in the public eye due to fear that a person might not report on an event that turns out to be false for fear of a slander or libel suit. That fear is lessened for non-public figures because reporting on non-public figures is generally not in the public interest. If you are reporting in the newspaper that John Doe, non public figure, is cheating on his wife, you better get that one more or less right because the interest in the public having any discourse on that at all is minimal at best and it does sort of invade John’s privacy–leading to the confusion the OP and others have between the doctrines.
As a general rule there is no difference between the various invasion of privacy torts (sample article: The Legal Right to Privacy | Stimmel Law) as it relates to public or private figures. We all might want to known what Cameron Diaz does in her daily life, but she is allowed to go behind closed doors and do what she wants just like the rest of us. When in a public place, people can walk up to her or take pictures just like they can walk up to us and take pictures (even though, admittedly, not many people would want to walk up to us or take pictures). But the tabloids have pushed that envelope too far, and the law has never allowed that “too far.”
In cases like the Barbara Streisand example cited above, public figures are fighting back.
A celebrity has no expectation of privacy because public exposure is part of their product. They derive wealth from it and any protection of their privacy is a cost of doing business.
A prominent person like Ruth Bader Ginsberg, though famous, does not derive wealth from public exposure. She has a reasonable expectation of privacy.
I’m trying to understand this. Let’s pick George Clooney as an example. We all know who he is, and in a way, “public exposure” is part of his “product.” If he walks down the street, he can expect people to stop and want an autograph, want their picture taken with him, or just to say how they love his movies. It’s something I don’t have to worry about when I’m in public. On that we agree.
But simply because he makes movies, and is a popular star, why does it then follow that private details of his life are fair game to a greater degree than they are mine or yours? Why does making movies sign a person up not to be protected by general rules of law?
Because he is the beneficiary of the public nuisance he created. A butcher who leaves meat exposed on the street will attract all manner of pests. Protection of his product is a cost of doing business. The same is true when your product is fame.
IANAL, but I believe this is factually incorrect. The definition of public figure can get kind of messy around the edges, but I’m pretty sure, legally speaking, a Supreme Court Justice is undisputedly a public figure. They have a job that is critical to public policy and they make public decisions in their names that affect the lives of millions of people.
It certainly has nothing to do with how much money they make off their public figure status.
In fact, as I understand it ( again, IANAL, and I welcome clarification and correction from real lawyers), the definition of public figure is almost circular - if you perform an action which could reasonably be expected to garner publicity, you qualify as ,at least, a limited public figure.
That holds if you rob a bank - or if you take down the bank robber.
Now, if you foil the bank robbery, becoming a public figure may have been the last thing you wanted. You could be a very private person that just wanted to save hostages from certain death. But that doesn’t change the fact that your actions were likely to garner publicity.
Now, if you were just hanging around near the bank when it was robbed, and some reporter decided you were an accomplice because you were the same ethnicity as the robbers and began publishing stories attempting to link you to the crime - you might have a libel case because you are not a public figure and did not behave in a way that was likely to draw publicity.
Unless you were actually involved, because truth is an absolute defense against libel.
I’ve never heard of “fame as a product” as a legal concept - and Google doesn’t seem to have either, most legal references to “fame” are in the context of trademark law.
If all you are saying is that you feel it’s OK for a large bunch of fans to follow George Clooney around and somewhat less than OK for a large bunch of fans to follow RBG around, although it’s probably OK if she is followed by a small group of fans…then OK, I’ll take that at face value.
But I’m more interested in whether there is any legal concept that offers RBG more protection from hordes of followers than George Clooney because Clooney is more or differently famous, and I don’t think there is.
That’s largely true, but the foil of the bank robbery is a limited public figure WRT the bank robbery, not any other aspect of his life not related to the bank robbery. (See the post after yours regarding limited public figure).
You are right to the extent that generally if a person is not a public figure, nobody will want to publish what they do, which is why my always invisible posts say that what the OP is talking about, invasion of privacy, and the public figure analysis are TWO DIFFERENT LEGAL CONCEPTS.
They relate only in the libel and slander analysis as to when a person is a public figure. Everyone, private or public, can benefit from the invasion of privacy torts. Let’s say George Clooney drinks a gallon of whiskey for breakfast (made up). That is between him, his wife, his employers, and his doctor. For a newspaper or tabloid to publish that fact to the world is nothing but an invasion of that man’s privacy.
Case law says that Clooney might not be able to sue for libel without actual malice, but he can still sue for an invasion of privacy, even if the statement is true. That’s what celebs are pushing back against.
Yes, ISTM we are conflating different concepts under the umbrella of “privacy” and “public figure” as understood by the Law vs. as seen by common lay culture. Ultra_Vires has addressed the difference. “Public figure” under the Law applies in a realm separate from “invasion of privacy”. It’s the general public that merges them.
In the common social culture we tend to be more willing to casually get in the business of the mere celebrity than of the actual high public official. But that’s because of an unspoken cultural understanding of how serious it is to expose the private foibles of an entertainer vs. someone in a position of high public trust.
Plenty of showbiz/sport celebrities are reported to be aloof vis-a-vis the fan in the street or the trade press, and all they get for that will be a reputation as a “difficult” prick/bitch though it it is understood to be their right. They are merely failig to meet a social expectation that they must be “entertaining” us 24/7 as “the price of Fame” they should be willing to bear (“they owe everything to the fans!”), and that they are not really obligated to comply with.
My comments were morphological not legal. Legal is whatever lawyers argue and I am not a lawyer. However, fame is the product they sell, like Ford sells cars. No legal concept involved. Famous people sometimes do outrageous things just for the sake of fame - ie Trump, Knievel etc. It is up to the individual to maintain the fine line that allows privacy.
An interesting example is Clara Bow and Rex Bell. They had a sumptuous little ranch in southern Nevada. To get there required a day or more by train to Nipton (population 6) and a drive by dirt road over the Castle Mountains to a peaceful valley. Until a few years ago there were still signs in the area requiring that you respect their privacy. They of course are long gone.
If the famous want privacy they have to work as hard at it as they did to become famous.
Fame and privacy are not too separate things. George Clooney’s appearance and talent (and, later, humanitarian and political work) are his “products.” Those “products” got him cast in lucrative TV shows and movies–fame. It does not mean a paparazzo has the moral right to snap photos of Clooney using a public restroom. GC’s fame doesn’t give someone the moral right to sneak a camera into his father’s funeral to get shots of GC grieving.
Nor is everyone who’s famous someone who sought or wanted fame. Would you argue that Elizabeth Smart, Capt. “Sully” Sullenberger, or Malala Yousafzai didn’t deserve privacy after the ordeals that brought them into the public eye?
Any moral problem stems from those who create, and those who serve, the market that places value on ‘celebrity at urinal’ images.
Sully et al did not create fame for income. Performance celebrities create their fame to enhance their wealth. A loss of privacy comes with that territory.
Also, the paparazzi are vital to a celebrity on the way up, but an inconvenience once fame is achieved. The paparazzi are part of the mechanism that creates fame. Their pay off comes when fame is achieved. Nothing personal, strictly business.
It’s interesting that you’re willing to grant paparazzi broad powers to violate privacy and exempt them from the repercussions of their actions because it’s “strictly business,” i.e., strictly money. Your argument that it’s OK for paparazzi to become wealthy off exploiting other people’s fame because paparazzi don’t seek fame (I’d argue otherwise) but “merely” money is…odd.
The argument that celebrities may have, in their youth, sought fame and are therefore morally not entitled to any privacy whatsoever for the rest of their famous lives is, logically speaking, shaky at best. No matter how you much you may disdain them, envy them, deplore them, humans who have become celebrities, whether they sought that status or not, are not exempt from the same moral principles as those who are not famous. And if you think the sole motive of those who pursue careers in, say, acting, is fame, you obviously don’t know many actors, many of whom simply want to work steadily for wages that will allow them to pay their bills.
And what of those who are only locally famous? I once held a position where I was well-known in the town in which I lived. My photo was in the newspaper regularly. I was interviewed frequently. I was on local television occasionally and on the radio often. I disliked that aspect of my job, but it was my job, and the publicity was helpful to the nonprofit that employed me, a nonprofit I believed in. Since the nonprofit paid my salary, you could say I profited by the exposure. In your view, would local people have been entitled to photograph me taking a shower? Would it have been OK for them to videotape me when my husband broke the news that my dad had died? My salary, by the way, put me well below median income. Is it only those who become wealthy from their fame who, in your view, lose any moral rights to privacy?
There’s a curious drive to punish those who become famous. Call it jealousy, call it schadenfreude, call it a twisted sense of justice; it doesn’t justify the abrogation of basic rights like privacy no matter what secret sense of satisfaction one may get from that loss.
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