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Cameron Diaz Can Tell People What Not To Link To?
from the seems-like-they're-going-a-bit-too-far... dept
Time for another thorny legal question concerning this wonderful thing we know as hypertext and the web. Apparently, there's some video out there of well-known actress Cameron Diaz that she doesn't want people seeing (something involving stuff she did when she was young and would rather the world didn't know about). Last year, she got an injunction against the person who was selling the video, saying that he was banned from "disseminating, distributing, publishing, broadcasting or otherwise displaying the photos and/or video." Fairly standard stuff. However, the injunction went one step further, claiming, that the ruling applied to "all others having knowledge or notice of this order." So, along comes Nick Denton's set of bloggers, where the folks at Fleshbot, Defamer and Gawker all had a field day with the fact that this video existed, and proceeded to link to a site that sold the video, as well as posting a screen shot from the video. This quickly resulted in a fairly nasty cease and desist letter from Ms. Diaz' lawyers -- even though they did not host or sell the video themselves. At first glance, this looks like a question about linking, and whether or not a judge can set up an injunction banning anyone (who knows about the injunction) from linking to a website. As has been discussed many times before, any ban on linking is ridiculous. The site doing the linking isn't hosting anything, but just pointing. However, what isn't getting as much coverage is the fact that the sites posted screenshots, which could fall under "otherwise displaying the photos" described in the injunction. At this point, it becomes a journalism question. Can people be barred from posting an image for journalistic reasons? The story of the video is now news, and the Gawker sites reported on it as news. Thus, it seems completely fair to include an image. Also, take it one step further. What if, instead of hosting the image themselves, they simply pulled it directly off another site? That's the same thing as linking, basically. Even more importantly, though, an awful lot of people (such as myself) who otherwise never would have known (or, frankly, cared) about what Ms. Diaz did a decade ago now know. Like Barbara Streisand before her, it looks like Ms. Diaz is getting a quick lesson in how the internet works: if you try to ban something or take it down, it's very likely that it will only get much, much more attention.
Reader Comments
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No Subject Given
lets get some links folks!!
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Re: No Subject Given
stileproject.com
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too late
I've already seen her tits. Ha ha.
Though for the life of me I don't know why I looked. She's way too skinny.
And dumb.
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No Subject Given
My Gf and I saw the video itself (linked from Fark.com) and we both agreed that the "outrage" about it is bullsh*t.
This is an attempt at a scandal to raise the media image of Diaz pure and simple. The more they talk about it...the more we see her in the media.
It was the same with Paris Hilton who doesn't even have the "talent" (word use debatable) that Diaz has...she was fading...what happens? Paris Hilton sextapes get released on the net, she milks the scandal and the outrage for all its worth and parlays it into interviews, series etc etc.
While its more conceivable that the Paris Hilton IS the real deal and a legitimate scandal...It looks to me that the Diaz stuff was orchestrated to have the same effect.
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personal reputation management
I wrote an article for my college paper once which was entitled 'drug use at yale is a legitimate past time.' However, this was linked around and came pretty high up in my google search. So I contacted some of the places and asked if they would a) change my name or b) take it down.
Obviously, once a person becomes celebrity, they enter the public domain (in a way). However, I think it is going to be increasingly important that we have the right to control our reputation online. Otherwise, you have to tell college students not to actually speak their mind because they will never live it down.
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Re: personal reputation management
Rubbish. If you do something stupid in a public arena why should be able to pretend it didn't happen? If you did it, you did it and you should live with it.
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Re: personal reputation management
Can someone just shut the fuck up and give us the website where we can go and spanky our monkies while viewing it ourselves ? huh ?
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Re: personal reputation management
Theyre charging fortunes for it at various places, but you can get it for free if you download limewire and use that (search for cameron diaz scandal) - though im sure kazaa or any of those also has it :)
You're monkeys are gonna be very pleased, she's an absolute honey in the vid =)
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