Annie wrote:
Unless Sally had a
contract at whatever convention the pictures were taken at that there would be no photography allowed she would, as you say, have no right to complain about the photos taken at a public event. Are you certain that was all there was to the story? Maybe the photos were bootlegs of ones that Sally herself did own a piece of (through a deal with the actual photographer or something similar)? I've seen THAT happen at conventions where a celebrity finds a dealer selling photos of them and it turns out that the celebrity DID own the copyright and the dealer (or their supplier) was bootlegging them.
Could be that Sally just didn't like the way the pictures made her look. For actors, their bodies are their instruments, their means of making their living. Whether they're hired or not often depends on how they look in a picture. So if she sees a picture which she thinks goes against her image, and might make it hard for her to get work, she'd have every right to ask for it to be removed.
A lot of the actors who come to conventions are doing so out of goodwill; whether because they have friends in fandom, or because they like meeting fans, or whatever. But if they start feeling uncomfortable about being involved with fans, they can just as easily refuse to go to conventions. Legal rights and rights to freedom of speech are not an issue here; courtesy to the actors is.
And international legal differences can't be ignored. What about that case last year where the French government prosecuted Yahoo for selling goods that are legal in America but illegal in France? And didn't Lalla Ward successfully sue a men's magazine a few years ago over faked-up nude photos of herself?
Shane
"No good deed goes unpunished." --Avon
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