I say that’s not blackmail. It’s hush money. I’m not sure whether to call it illegal unless you are a politician. If you’re just my neighbor and you offer me $1000 not to tell your wife I didn’t see that bimbo with you at a bar last week, what law is broken? We might both be sleazebags, but you’re not a blackmailer. You just paid me off.
So can you cover yourself by somehow letting it be known that you’re aware of their secret without explicitly saying so – by being seen watching your neighbors go into the motel or whatever? Is the difference between blackmail and not a matter of finesse?
But there could conceivably be a suit for public disclosure of private facts–one of the privacy torts. This might make the whole situation seems a little less incongruous (namely, there’s a chance for recovery–a lesser chance, to be sure–if one wrongfully discloses, even if one did not try to expropriate anything of value out of the subject of the disclosure).
If I recall correctly blackmail is a subtype of extortion. Extortion is trying to influence someone else’s behaviour by threatening to do something. Blackmail is when that “something” would otherwise be legal.
Well, “legal” in the sense that you won’t go to jail for it. But not “legal” in the sense that the you can’t be sued for it. It’s a tort, not a crime (although, there’s also the possibility that you could make out a case for harassment).
Is it blackmail if you have… say, the damaging photos and you confront the subject with them and demand money. He pays and then you publish them ANYWAY?
Bwahahahahaha!
I have this little fantasy of doing this to certain members of my POA Board of Directors. Self rightous, smug bastards.
Its blackmail if the other person doesn’t want to pay but would rather pay then someone find out that information.
If I walk up to a person and say “I saw you kill someone” and leave. They don’t want me to tell so they have a few choices to make. Paying me off would be blackmail, even if I asked for nothing. Blackmail doesn’t involve just money, it is any exchange of something for something else when both parties are not in whole hearted agreement.
You could say someone would like to pay you to be quite but in honesty, they would rather you didn’t say anything at all…for free!
There is no “gray area” here…unless your speaking legally.