For reasons that don’t need to be discussed, someone I know has video (with my voice) and photos of me doing volunteer work for a local non-profit organization. I was not consulted about the disposition of this material, and I found out that it has been posted, with various hashtags, on her instagram and a couple of other places. It is not that I am ashamed of anything shown or said, but as I said I was not consulted and the material was obtained, in my opinion, dishonestly. I would not have agreed to this use of the material, nor the gathering of it, if I had been consulted in advance.
I am going to ask her politely to take the material down, but I am wondering if I have any legal or other recourse if she refuses (aside from the irrevocable severing of our relationship).
It very much depends on who owns the footage that she is using, where and how it was obtained, and what use she is making of it, I’m afraid. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. There is no general rule that says a person may not post your image online without your consent, so you are going to have to point to further facts if you want to estalblish that you have any legal recourse.
Was this video taken in a public place where anyone could have taken a video? If it’s just a general video recorded in public with you in it and general hashtags, I’m not sure you have much legal standing to have it taken down. If it features you specifically with personal hashtags like “#roderick_rocks”, then that may be a different situation. Especially since you mention it being obtained dishonestly. If she said she wasn’t going to post it but then she did, then you could likely force it to be taken down. But if it’s a video of a bunch of people doing stuff in public and you happen to be one of those people, I don’t think there’s much you can do about it legally.
One thing to remember about pursuing things legally is that it can be quite expensive. Lawyers may charge $100’s per hour to handle the case and costs can rise quickly. Unless you can prove some significant financial damages you suffered, you would likely be out a lot of money to try to have the courts do anything about it.
She asked me if she minded her taking my picture, which I agreed to, I did not agree to extensive video with sound, nor did I agree to the disposition of the collection of stuff into a presentation on her instagram. She even said later she primed me with questions about what I was doing during the video so I would give a good performance. That is the extent of what I consider the dishonest obtaining of material.
It was taken on a public street but I was the only person in the video, and obviously the subject of it.
She never asked me if she could post it, she only told me after the fact.
I haven’t looked at the online presentation yet, so I’m not sure if my name is in it in any way, either in written content or in a hash tag (if the latter I feel certain it would be the only one in the universe, but I digress).
This is all I can think of about it that answers the questions asked so far. The fact that I feel manipulated and used is probably not relevant to any outside recourse.
IANAUSL, but nothing is leaping out at me as giving you legal grounds for enforcing the removal of the video. I’d hope that a polite conversation in which you express your unhappiness with featuring in her Instagram account and say that, if you had known of her intention, you wouldn’t have agreed to her request to take your picture, would suffice to get her to remove the material. Tactically speaking, probably best not to impute dishonesty or sharp practice to her if you don’t have to, as this may get her back up and make her less likely, not more likely, to accede to your entirely reasonable request.
She filmed you in public, after you agreed to it. I don’t see how you have any legal reason to make her take it down or what she did wrong. Why don’t you just ask her politely?
What did you think she would be doing with the footage if not showing it somewhere?
As above, I did not realize she was taking “footage.” And gee, maybe I thought she wanted a couple of snapshots for herself, as a keepsake of the experience. She is my husband’s niece who asked to come with me while she is visiting us.
So you’re the only person on the street and she is interviewing you while pointing a phone at you, and you didn’t think she was filming?
And geez, so it turns out she is family? Why are you blowing this into some major thing and looking into legal options. Just tell her you’d like her to take it down.
I’m making some assumptions, but I’m guessing the fallout of trying to get this removed will be much worse than whatever issues come from leaving it up. Since she is family, confronting her about this is going to create hard feelings which may be long lasting and affect your relationship with other family members.
One thing to consider is that young people may feel differently about social media than you do. They are comfortable with sharing every minute detail of their lives. If you are not of that mindset, it might feel like a huge violation that she posted the video with you. But in the big scheme of her social media, it may be relatively insignificant. Just ignoring it will mean it will fade away in a short time and everyone will forget about it. At this point, everyone who is likely to see the video has probably already seen the video. I’m not sure that removing it will actually change anything about who sees it in the future. It’s just going to be one video in a huge pile of videos on her instagram that most people ignore. If you are tagged in the video, you can remove the tag so that your account doesn’t link to the video.
Most reasonable people would take the video down with a simple ask like “Hey, I saw the video you posted, but would be okay to take it down? I’m more of a private person and prefer not to be on the web.” I wouldn’t get into how upset it made you. There’s nothing wrong with those feelings, but it could complicate things trying to get her to take it down. If she’s reasonable, she’ll take it down with a simple ask.
That’s also what conversations are, which are not interviews. If you don’t know someone is filming you with a microphone it’s not a fucking interview, it’s a stealth interview.
IINAL, but I don’t think she’s running afoul of any US privacy laws here. Elsewhere, laws are much stricter. But in public in the US, where you don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy, I don’t think so. I mean, the devil’s in the details, and this is why we have lawyers. But I can take a picture of you and post it on my website as an “editorial photo,” for example, without you having any recourse, as long as it’s in a public space or visible from a public space. I don’t need your permission. I’m limited very much with how I can use it without a model release, but just posting it is fine. That audio part I don’t know as much about, but the wiretapping statutes seem to exclude public spaces.
You’re almost certainly out of luck with regards to the recording itself. It happened in public and on a device in plain sight. Even if you live in a two-party consent state, it would be hard to argue that your expectation of privacy was violated.
You might have more luck in a civil lawsuit on the grounds that she violated your personality rights when she used the recordings without permission, but it’s going to depend on state statutes.
It wasn’t up to @Roderick_Femm to suss out what she was doing or her ultimate intentions. She asked for a picture.
This board <ahem> has a way of pounding someone to a pulp for asking a reasonable question. Makes me nuts sometimes.
If someone asked if they could take a picture of me and then it turned out they were recording a conversation and posted it on the internet, I’d be pissed as hell! There is not one thing wrong with your reaction. And if it’s an age difference (“Kids expect their whole lives to be broadcast online, get with it, you old fart!”) then you can point out you’re not a kid and don’t live by the same code.
But it’s best to ask politely. (I would not be able to disguise my extreme irritation, hope you’re better at it.) Don’t fault her or accuse her of lying or misrepresenting or getting the video under false pretenses – just say you don’t want to be on Instagram or anywhere else and please take it down, thank you very much. With a smile, if you can manage it (I wouldn’t be able to).
I think you’d better forget about any legal recourse. You don’t want to go that route, even if it made sense, which, frankly, it doesn’t.
But that would only apply if she were using it commercially, no? Yes, that’s a big no-no without a model release anywhere in the States, as far as I know.
Many states outlaw audio recordings without the consent of those recorded. That’s why so many phone sites start by saying, “this conversation may be recorded …” And asking to take your photo is not the same as asking to record your voice. So you might have legal standing. It varies by state.
That being said, i think the action most likely to get it removed and least likely to cost you money is to tell her something like, “hey, i didn’t realize you planned to record me and post that online. It makes me uncomfortable. Can you please remove it.” Hopefully you can count on one of her parents to explain to her that what she did feels like an invasion of privacy to most people of your (shared) generation. If this was just a misunderstanding of normal boundaries, and she’s basically a decent human being, she will take it down and apologize. (And maybe think you are a weird old fart for caring.)