??? You’ve posted that many times and you don’t know if you can say boobs? I’d feel pretty safe if I were you since it is prominently displayed all over the place in the user name of FireUnderpantsBoobs.
Anyhoo I can say that at the beginning of those vids they have a long spiel about how this is supposed to be like news and they are showing it merely as a means of showing what really happened in public places with cameras in full view. Of course we all realize why they’re selling it, to satisfy lusty men, and that it has absolutely nothing to do with trying to be newsworthy. But if someone sued them I’m sure their case would hinge on that. And I’m pretty sure that would work for them. 1st amendment and stuff.
I remember this case a few years ago about this couple who had sued their neighbor because he had filmed them having sex from his own house. I think they were doing it in their house but it was plainly visible through windows. I think they were doing it on the stairs. The neighbor was apparantly upset that his kids could see it. And I believe they lost and the peeping neighbor won.
I remember hearing “sboob” on a Saturday Night Live
news segment. The film Splash was just out. The reporter
was wondering how two strands of hair could cover Daryll Hannah’s “sboob” even in windy conditions. He prefaced his report with a nearly identical ‘I don’t know if I can say this on …’
Re-the rest of the OP
Does it matter? For one of the women to sue, she would have to come forward. The media would be on her like cameras on girl gone wild. I suspect that the company is relying on this.
Public vs. private activities has nothing to do with this issue. You have the right to take photos of anything and anyone in a public space. But you do not have the right to use those photos for commercial profitmaking ventures without explicit permission of the person you photographed. There is only one exception: public figures (i.e. celebrities, politicians, etc).
Oh, oops, I forgot the other exception: news events. Nothing about GGW is a news event, it would be stretching the laws to the breaking point. No sleazy vid distributor is going to threaten their business by putting women on his video without a written “model release.”
This is also assuming that the women were just “picked off the street.” No reason why the producer didn’t hire 'em for this job in the first place.
In journalism, we have to be very careful about privacy issues. Generally, we can photograph anything on private property, so long as we stay on public property to do it, and we don’t try things like extreme zoom lenses to peek inside of houses. Same thing with crime scenes; just because police are on the property and putting up the yellow ribbons marking off the area doesn’t give the press the right to move in closer.
As far as taking pictures of celebrities and selling them without permission, that happens all the time, particularly with the tabloids. There are companies that specialize in selling photos of the stars taken at concerts, premieres and other places. I doubt the stars get a cut of this action. The one exception would be if a photo was used in advertising; then you would get into some real hot water real fast.
This “public space” thing just doesn’t seem right. I could be walking down the street, trip and fall in a comical fashion with my skirt billowing up for all to see my thong bikini.
Since I am in a public place, someone can videotape me and sell the video of my busting and showing my ass and make tons of money in the process. . . but I can’t do anything about it because I was walking down a public street when it happened?
At the beginning of the “Girls Gone Wild” video (at least the one my friend has) there is a disclaimer that says something to the effect of “all scenes shot in a public place with camera in plain view of the subject,” or something like that. I think that satisfies some kind of law, otherwise they wouldn’t put that in there. We actually discussed this issue in a class (I was a Criminal Justice minor at a big photography school), and we found that according to statute law, this was legal, if it were indeed a public place, and the camera was visible, and it was not considered “pornography”. Of course, case law may be different, I didn’t research that too heavily.
In case you don’t know, statute law is the law “on the books”, case law is a judges interpretation of those laws. Unless rules differently by a higher court, case law holds over statute law.
Of course, there is the one sacene in the commercial where the girl is walking into the shower, and blows a kiss at the camera. I kind of doubt THAT was taken on Bourbon Street. So which was it? A woman who was dumb enough to let them use that scene, or some guy slimy enough to sell his private tape of his (proably ex-) girlfriend to these ‘producers’?
These commercials are on WAY too often. Hence I can say that this is a totally different series by the same producers called “Sexy Sorority Sweethearts” whereupon I’m led to believe they hired some girls (presumably sorority members but who knows?) to take film of themselves and this is what they got.
Chas, your post is a bit misleading; you seem to be saying that you can use a celebrity’s likeness to sell a commercial product without their permission, which is emphatically NOT so (see Hoffman v. Capital Cities/ABC Inc., 33 F.Supp. 2d 867 (1999)).
When a person appears in public, they can reasonably expect to be seen and photographed. Those photographs can be sold for profit, whether the person is a celebrity or a regular joe. The only limitation I know of is that many states prohibit the use of a person’s likeness in an advertisement for a commercial product without that person’s permission (and I’m not about to go into the celebrity “right to publicity” stuff).
As with everything in law, there are exceptions; the California statute, for example (Cal. Civil Code §3344, if you’re interested), says in subsection (d) that “for purposes of this section, a use of a name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness in connection with any news, public affairs, or sports broadcast or account, or any political campaign, shall not constitute a use for which consent is required…”. Which makes sense, because otherwise filming any sport would be a pain in the ass because you’d have to diligently avoid photographing the crowd.
Anyway, now we’re in a murky area. While it’s pretty disingenuous for them to call “Girls Gone Wild” a “news event”, as far as I know no one’s called 'em on it. And I can’t be sure without more digging if using someone’s likeness in an advertisement for the sale of that likeness, but not another commercial product, is prohibited. Still, it probably wouldn’t have been all that hard for them to get the permission of some of the girls to use their likeness in the yet-to-come TV advertisements.