From: matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re:  Photo of minor, etc./Virtual Ethics
Summary: Believe only half of what you see, and still less of what you hear.
Keywords: Excellence in Broadcasting
Date: 9 Apr 92 16:50:22 GMT
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.

In article <9204081901.AA07426@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> 
wmartin@STL-06SIMA.ARMY.MIL (Will Martin) writes:

. . .
>You could create your own "ABSCAM" tapes of any political figure you
>wished taking bribes and saying any outrageous thing you want to depict
>him or her doing. 

>When this arrives, I would think the immediate reaction, as usual, will
>be "laws against it". But a more forthright and useful reaction would be
>to change the way one views a video image. It would become no more
>trustworthy than a drawing is today.  [Will Martin]

In fact, it would be no more trustworthy than a PBS documentary on, say,
the environment or the Middle East.

>If someone says they have "proof"
>that x did y, and then produces a drawing of x doing y, this is no proof
>and they will be laughed down. A video will become no more reliable or
>trustworthy than a drawing, because anyone will be able to make a video
>image of anything and it will not have any necessary relationship to any
>event that may have happened.    [Will Martin]

But today's big media are able to fool the ignorant and unsuspecting even
without fancy virtual-reality technology!  Remember the ABC News "recreation"
of some Austrian Blockhead playing cloak and dagger with our secrets?  The
landscape of today's world of television has become like the Arabian Desert
of _Cave of Ali Baba_, about which Scrooge McDuck warns his grandnephews,
"Believe only half of what you see, and still less of what you hear."

>In this environment, what will happen to the "rights" of a person to
>their image?   [Will Martin]

Just like today, a person's "rights" will depend upon how good a lawyer
he can afford.  For instance, Rush Limbaugh this week has been airing
a "commercial" for "Femi-Nazi Trading Cards."  The "commercial" has a
girl lamenting that she "spilled nail polish on my Betty Friedan."  Each
card will supposedly feature a past or present "heroine" in an action pose,
such as integrating an all-male club.  The other side of the card, like
that of a baseball trading card, will list vital information such as
physical dimensions, number of abortions, and size of alimony payments.

Can the people actually named in the "commercial" sue Mr. Limbaugh?
What if his Excellence-In-Broadcasting Network marketing people go ahead
and mass-produce the cards in the Real World, as they produce and market
"Rush Limbaugh" coffee mugs?  Could the subjects of the cards sue the EIB 
for misappropriating their image, or for invading their privacy, or for
depicting them in a "false light"?  

>Right now, I can draw an image of anybody doing anything
>I wish to show them doing (if I could draw :-). This is nothing new --
>cartoonists have done this for centuries, and it is protected under free
>speech and political commentary in many jurisdictions.   [Will Martin]

What if, instead of photographs, Rush Limbaugh's "Femi-Nazi Trading Cards"
featured cartoon caricatures?  Could the subjects still sue?

Sure, they could sue.  Whether they can win, however, depends on the 
relative skills of their lawyers and Mr. Limbaugh's lawyers.

					-- Matt Rosenblatt
                                        (matt@amsaa.brl.mil)

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