The right to ones image relative to ownership of ones body.

[metatron]

You are probably all aware of the ongoing debate regarding the phenomenon of "revenge porn".

You may have also taken notice last month of yet another case of a female teenager facing a whole bunch of child pornography charges for distributing nude "selfies" (mostly among class mates, non-commercially, largely for reasons of vanity/seeking of approval).

You may as well be aware of the ongoing campaign of various celebrities, particularly Kristen Bell over the issue of publication of photos of celebreties' children without consent. Kristen had famously coined the hashtag #pedo-razzi.

Now, i of course, living in one of those primitive neckbearded MRA countries that haven't heard the Good News of the Privilege, the Patriarchy and Saint Sarkeesian yet, am rather perplexed by the whole problem.

• Shouldn't ownership of ones own body entail ownership of ones own image, which would include control over its publication?
  Politicians and media personalities would of course have already surrendered this control by aggressively publicising themselves. But their children would still be protected by it.
• How do your opinions on this affect your opinions on such things as the legality of pornography?
  And for that matter how do you hold it with prostitution vis-a-vis ownership of ones own body in the first place?
• Lastly: What do you think about the cited individual concrete issues themselves?

 

[Borachio]

I'm not sure I own my own body. I think I may be paying rent for it.

Still, I mustn't be so flippant, must I?

It's a serious question.

But how far would you take it? Don't people surrender control of the publication of their image simply by leaving the house and entering public spaces?

 

[Kyriakos]

:/ nm

 

[JollyRoger]

If you are in public view, then I don't think you should have control over your image.

Child pornography charges for a selfie or possession of such an image that was distributed by the person are ridiculous.

Revenge porn is mostly fake, but I think it could be the subject of civil action to the extent it is purposely distributed to people known to the former couple.

 

[metatron]

But how far would you take it? Don't people surrender control of the publication of their image simply by leaving the house and entering public spaces?

You can buy an incredibly famous painting of a living artist, aquire the copyright, buy the house on the other side of street, redecorate and carry the painting back and forth to that end.
You still hold the copyright.

Worse: You can be a member of, say, the Rolling Stones, perform not just in one open air concert in public spaces in front of thousands of people but in hundreds of them and still hold the copyright.

These are things that are arguably relevant to all human beings, if any art is, yet you can sue the living poop out of someone who's doing a youtube video about cookie recipies and has the radio on in the background.

Your face on the other hand is yours and hardly relevant to anyone. Yet you are supposed to have automatically surrendered it by... erm... living?

 

[Borachio]

All that is true. I suppose.

But it just makes me think that the whole copyright business stinks.

 

[illram]

What JR said.

 

[Farm Boy]

But it just makes me think that the whole copyright business stinks.

Ding ding ding! Is it anymore complicated than that? I really don't think it is.

 

[Zelig]

What illram said.

 

[Borachio]

What Zelig said.

Spoiler :

Has someone taken a copyright out on this meme yet?

 

[Akka]

Shouldn't ownership of ones own body entail ownership of ones own image, which would include control over its publication?

That's actually the case in civilized countries.

 

[metatron]

This whole affair might also be somewhat relevant:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/03/0...pskirt-ruling-as-lawmakers-rush-to-amend-law/

 

[H4run]

How about, if one peoples have a consent with a cannibal to actually let himself to kill and consume his body, and the agreement is been written and agree under paper. If we assume that the person who give the permit to the Cannibal to devour his body actually have a total rights regarding his own body, then it mean this cannibal will have every right to eat this man because the owner already give the consent.

And this is really happen, this case known as Cannibal of Rotenburg with the Cannibal end up been punished. But if we suppose to be agree, that this person have right to his own body, then the Cannibal shouldn't be punish.

So, to truly apply this principle will be very tricky especially now we living in the very weird world, where very weird event can actually happen. There should be a limit on everything. There are both privacy and social aspects in our body that both have its right and should be treat in balance.

 

[Borachio]

Um. Yeah. I remember that cannibal case.

I don't think you can consent to an illegal act at the moment, though. Which seems to take care of that.

You can no longer legally sell yourself into slavery, for example. You can't consent to be raped, either. By definition of what rape is.

 

[H4run]

I think in many case willingly delivering yourselves into the prostitution in some case it is likely to deliver yourselves to slavery. I watch a documentary of slave trafficking, that many of the case are come from Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, Greece, etc, to the rest of the world, but the documentary concentrating on Turkey.

It is a scam, the girl mostly get trapped into it, they been promised to be labour in common jobs like waiters in some cafee, however they end up been transfer to prostitution, and the biggest customer for this scam in west europe is Netherlands and German.

The way they work is really horrific. The pimps set them a goal for them to cover before they can be freed, and they ought to please the customer and what ever they request them to do, if they fail that, they will get punished sometime by not getting a whole months of their income as somekind of penalty. They get raped there, get beaten, and they been force to keep working even when they were sick. And if they able to cover the whole pseudo debt that they owe to the pimps, they been release by the pimps by selling them to the other pimps and again having the new debt to cover.

One of the Moldovan woman that able to escape from the pimp, able to go back to her family. But later on because of Economical struggle, she again willingly get into that horrific business again, delivering herself to the pimp who trap her. And I don't see a difference between the prostitue pimps in general with the slave owner.

 

[BvBPL]

Shouldn't ownership of ones own body entail ownership of ones own image, which would include control over its publication?

No, not if you want anything resembling a free press. The idea that people have a right to control the publication of their own image would turn journalism on its head.

 

[metatron]

No, not if you want anything resembling a free press. The idea that people have a right to control the publication of their own image would turn journalism on its head.

How about the very next sentence?

Shouldn't ownership of ones own body entail ownership of ones own image, which would include control over its publication?
Politicians and media personalities would of course have already surrendered this control by aggressively publicising themselves. But their children would still be protected by it.

It'd be called being "a person of public interest".

Applies to politicians, actors, artists, entertainers, journalists, lobbyists, some criminals, certain business executives, bureaucrats etc.
Just not their children.

 

[Borachio]

Aren't we living in a world where everyone, including children, is fast becoming a media personality?

 

[El_Machinae]

If you are in public view, then I don't think you should have control over your image.

Child pornography charges for a selfie or possession of such an image that was distributed by the person are ridiculous.

Revenge porn is mostly fake, but I think it could be the subject of civil action to the extent it is purposely distributed to people known to the former couple.

Well, I'll disagree. Allowing selfie distribution just opens the door to coercion, to get her to distribute the photos. I'd think that there's certainly a case for leniency if you can convince a judge there was no coercion.

And I'll disagree with revenge porn being a civil case. It's retroactive sexual assault. The person consented to being filmed, but unless there was explicit consent to the film being distributed, the sex was gained under false pretenses.

 

[Leoreth]

I'm a bit perplexed by this thread because it seems to try to talk about many different things, and I can't really see how they're related.

Starting off with the central question. Yes, I do think that an ordinary private person has the right to control ones own image. That includes both the right to share your own image (how can someone be charged for "child pornography" for making pictures of themselves when child pornography legislation exists to protect children from pornographers? Are all nude depictions of people pornography now by the way? Shouldn't there also be a commercial aspect involved somewhere?), but also the right to completely remove your own image from the public space again, or to only make it available to specific people and them only - which is I guess where the revenge porn angle comes in.

The latter aspect is of course dangerously unprotected legally right now, and I'm always horrified how many people just shrug and accept that as if nothing could be done about it.

I disagree that being a politician or celebrity of any sort ("person of public interest" is probably the correct term) means that you have completely relinquished the right to control your own image. Filming Obama at an international conference is different from filming him being on the toilet, to use an extreme example. If you are a person of public interest, you have to accept that you don't have to give consent to have your image taken when attending public events related to your activity, but you are still allowed to have a private life. And yes, just going to the beach is a private activity.

Sure, there is some gray area here, but it's pretty easy to see which activities are exclusively private. People who go on about freedom of the press fall prey to the fallacy that certain rights and freedoms are absolute and could never get in conflict with other rights and freedom, and which case a balance would need to be found. And I see the above distinction between public and private life as a both obvious and workable balance between freedom of reporting and the right to privacy. What does the ability to invade someone's privacy have to do with the original idea of and purpose behind the freedom of the press anyway? So the yellow press will make a little less money and nosy people will have a little less opportunity to pry into other people's private lives, boohoo.

And this isn't even in question for the children of people of public interest. They didn't do anythign to sign up for this, and frankly celebrities who push their children into the spotlight should be visited by social services instead of photographers.

And yeah, ownership of your own body should enable you to freely engage in pornography and prostitution, as long as you don't become a victim of exploitation in the process. That is isn't always the case should be obvious, and what politics should do to deal with that is worthy of an entirely different discussion.

What I absolutely don't get at all is what your random gibe against certain segments of Anglo-American feminism has to do with it all, so I'll just chalk it up to the explanation that you still have a completely unrelated axe to grind there.