Revenge porn: More than 200 prosecuted under new law
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
"(5)In proceedings for an offence under subsection (1), A has a defence if the following matter is established—
(a)B was in the intimate situation shown in the photograph or film,
(b)B was not in the intimate situation as a result of a deliberate act of another person to which B did not agree, and
(c)when B was in the intimate situation—
(i)B was in a place to which members of the public had access (whether or not on payment of a fee), and
(ii)members of the public were present."
.. which is kind of clunkily worded, but seems to be there to provide a defence for people taking photos of those voluntarily exposing themselves in public. I'm not quite sure how this will be applied to tabloid telescopic voyeurism. A sufficiently aggressive prosecutor could either kill the Daily Mail overnight or force them to admit that most of their "snaps" are in fact staged publicity.
The law relates to "a photograph or film which shows, or appears to show, another person (“B”) in an intimate situation,"
which is further defined:
"a person is in an “intimate situation” if—
(a)the person is engaging or participating in, or present during, an act which—
(i)a reasonable person would consider to be a sexual act, and
(ii)is not of a kind ordinarily done in public, or
(b)the person’s genitals, buttocks or breasts are exposed or covered only with underwear."
How about this. Would you be comfortable with someone who had an intimate/sexual photo of you sharing it around?
Don't be shitty to other people. Why is this hard?
Probably illegal, depending on the exact circumstances.
"a photograph or film is disclosed if it, or any data or other thing which is capable of being converted into it, is given, shown or made available to a person other than B."
From a quick reading, you can't just have it, you have to have consent to show it or a really solid reason why it had to be shown (such as in relation to another investigation, like this was the only photo that was proof)
So no, showing off someone's private pics you took if they did not consent that you could show them would be considered illegal under this. Basically the law codifies the transaction of intimate pictures
Relevent section: (1)A person (“A”) commits an offence if—
(a)A discloses, or threatens to disclose, a photograph or film which shows, or appears to show, another person (“B”) in an intimate situation,
(b)by doing so, A intends to cause B fear, alarm or distress or A is reckless as to whether B will be caused fear, alarm or distress, and
(c)the photograph or film has not previously been disclosed to the public at large, or any section of the public, by B or with B’s consent.
(2)For the purposes of this section, a photograph or film is disclosed if it, or any data or other thing which is capable of being converted into it, is given, shown or made available to a person other than B.
(3)In proceedings for an offence under subsection (1), A has a defence if any of the following facts is established—
(a)B consented to the photograph or film being disclosed,
(b)A reasonably believed that B consented to the photograph or film being disclosed,
(c)A reasonably believed that disclosure of the photograph or film was necessary for the purposes of the prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of crime, or
(d)A reasonably believed that disclosure of the photograph or film was in the public interest.
(4)For the purposes of subsection (3), consent to the photograph or film being disclosed may be—
(a)consent which is specific to the particular disclosure or (as the case may be) the particular threatened disclosure, or
(b)consent to disclosure generally where that consent covers the particular disclosure or (as the case may be) the particular threatened disclosure.
edit: just noticed there is an intent requirement in the law as well.
Firstly, the copyright of the pictures is almost always likely to reside with the person taking the pictures who is often the one sharing them.
Secondly, in many/most jurisdictions many/most forms of copyright violation fall under civil, not criminal law. However, this is a criminal act and the penalty should be much higher.
Your girl/boyfriend takes a photo of you nude. Then they post it online without your consent. Are you okay with this?
In the case of photos of two or more copyright becomes even more inappropriate.
Given some of the news pieces about revenge porn, from both sides of the Atlantic, this seems a very sensible addition.
Besides anything else, surely a basic moral compass suggests this is wrong, and on a different part of the spectrum to "copyright infringement"
In fact pshycial force is only one of several definitions of violence in the dictionary ("rough or injurious physical force, action, or treatment") which also includes things such as: "roughly or immoderately vehement or ardent" and "intense in force, effect, etc.; severe; extreme" for "violence".
That's a dishonest redefining of a word. The motivation behind it is: people think violence is bad, we'll call this thing violence even though it isn't, so people think this thing is worse that they already think.
And even if you want to a total nitpicker, from an etymological standpoint there's nothing that suggests that violence only describes physical acts of violence.
Heck, even back to the very etymology of the word from latin it means both "vehement" (showing strong feeling; forceful, passionate, or intense) and exerting strong physical force.
It's neither dishonest nor redefinition.
Check a dictionary for "violence". You'll find several lemmas unrelated to force and beating. Also Google for "psychological violence", "emotional violence" etc. You'll find it's a common use.
>* The motivation behind it is: people think violence is bad, we'll call this thing violence even though it isn't, so people think this thing is worse that they already think.*
People have been using the word "violence" for non-physical for centuries, it's not some sudden "motivation" that causes this.
It makes sense to use the term for something like exposing an ex-girlfriend's/wife's naked photographs on the world.
I don't think many would find the practice acceptable in the first place, for there to be any need to classify it as "violence" to convince people it's bad.
I honestly find it disturbing you don't see that or don't care.
But it's not violence.
Everytime you ask the law to regulate something, you open the jar of unintended consequences.
You complain about the government and yet you want to give them more power and responsibility.
Honestly, this revenge porn shit is a moral hysteria that's one of the many tools of spectacle. If this much hysteria were used for something like "Make sure daytime workers receive 30 minutes of sunlight light a day", it'd probably be more effective towards human happiness and productivity.
Oh well.
All (properly) criminal activities must have a victim, but they don't have to involve physical force.
Some examples:
+ theft
+ defamation
+ espionage
Technology how to detect these type of content using AI - that could be a tech news, not merely a fact of some angry ex uploading naughty pics.
I am joking, of course.
(Besides which, Hacker News is not just for tech news. Read the guidelines.)