publishing personal data without consent

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Mysfyt

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hi ,

i recieved an email this morning from a person who threatented
to disclose personal information on public forums... / photos (he claims nude) / documatation with regards to my personal life. i have no idea really as to what content, if any he actually has in his possession. i do know that i would not want any kind of
data like that in the hands of the common public.

any information/phots/documentaion he may have is also
without my knowledge or consent...i kinda feel stalked at
this point and incredibly angry.

he is a moderator on the forum he is threatenting to post this
info on and also from austraila...i am in the USA.

my questions are:

1. is it legal?
2. under what law/subject would it classified (ie. stalking/defamation/libel/just general creepiness)?
3. what can i do if he actually has and publishes this data?
4. what legal agency would address this type of crime (if any crime is defined)?

my first inclination is to call his bluff and consequenses be damned. i detest bullies and persons of this character. but
i want to arm myself with as much knowledge as i possibly
can before i make a move that could very well cause me
considerable discomfort and hurt me both publically and
privately.

thank you for time and attention.
 
Last edited:
ammend...

ok i called his bluff and posted his email to me on that same
forum...it was of couse deleted shortly after but i did save everything and uploaded it to my web server for safe keeping.

i also forwarded the mail to abuse@his.isp (that is usually unaffective) . another member of the forum was so incensed
he actually reported the forum and the mail. im sure i will be
retaliated against but i cannot allow some psycho creepshow
to do that to me.

ps. sorry i belatedly noticed the defamtion forum but i was not
sure what this classfied as being.

thank you for providing this resource..good reading here :)



forgive me
 
As far as the documentation goes, people are entitled to have and express their "opinions" about other people and state them as truth, however they are not allowed to write false statements (which is slander).

Most people seem to believe that their mistakes they made in their past are protected by law, they are not as proven time and time again in courts. As long as the claims can be backed up by evidence of some sort there is not a lot that can not be said.

That said, original documents have some form of copyright, provided they contain at least a certain minimum amount of authorship in the form of original literary, musical, pictorial, or graphic expression.

Which leads to the nude photos, if they are your private photos and he got them in an illegal manner, such as hacking your computer he can not publish them. However if you made the nude photos publically availibe and/or have given them away to other people it is a much complexer story.
 
Laws vary, as you know. With regard to photos, I'm not sure whether the person does have intellectual property rights to do so. There may be laws that might protect you if the posting can be harmful to your wellbeing. The Dark Wanderer makes some good points as well. Typically an ISP or privately run web site will have rules which prohibit such conduct and they will likely not want to get into any dispute. Your handling the matter like you did is probably the best first step to get the materials taken down.

Originally posted by Mysfyt
i recieved an email this morning from a person who threatented
to disclose personal information on public forums... / photos (he claims nude) / documatation with regards to my personal life. i have no idea really as to what content, if any he actually has in his possession. i do know that i would not want any kind of
data like that in the hands of the common public.

any information/phots/documentaion he may have is also
without my knowledge or consent...i kinda feel stalked at
this point and incredibly angry.

he is a moderator on the forum he is threatenting to post this
info on and also from austraila...i am in the USA.

my questions are:

1. is it legal?
2. under what law/subject would it classified (ie. stalking/defamation/libel/just general creepiness)?
3. what can i do if he actually has and publishes this data?
4. what legal agency would address this type of crime (if any crime is defined)?

my first inclination is to call his bluff and consequenses be damned. i detest bullies and persons of this character. but
i want to arm myself with as much knowledge as i possibly
can before i make a move that could very well cause me
considerable discomfort and hurt me both publically and
privately.
Click to expand...
 
Re: Re: publishing personal data without consent

Originally posted by thelawprofessor
Laws vary, as you know. With regard to photos, I'm not sure whether the person does have intellectual property rights to do so. There may be laws that might protect you if the posting can be harmful to your wellbeing.
Click to expand...
In the past years more and more cases have come to court where a side of a "celebrity" was shown that was quite harmfull for their wellbeing. The lawsuits that those celebrities should have been won relativelly easy if there was a law that forbids the exposure of material that is harmfull to a person. I am afraid that, if such a law exists, generally freedom of speech will "outweigh" this law.

Altough it can be argued that, since you are no celebrity, your personal right for privacy is more important then the freedom of speech and that it is in no one's best interrest that this harmfull content is published, a counter-argument could be formed alongs the lines of you being a celebrity amongst the people you know (celebrity is a relative term) and that it is the right of those people to know who you really are.

Another point comes to mind is; you say he threatened you. If he merelly wanted to execute his freedom of speech (to inform the public/make money of it) he would have posted the material, but this person seems to want something from you. Altough you do not specify what the person wants from you, if what he wants from you is illegal it can be considered blackmail.

Like stated before the main issue here are the property rights of the photos, but that has been discussed before (in other threads as well).

Unfortunatelly the moderator can post the (nude) photos on numerous places on the web and it will be damm hard to prove that he was the one posting it, so if he really wants to damage you it can be very hard to find a means to stop him.
 
As someone else pointed out, in certain situations a charge of harassment might be in order. Depending upon how the materials came into the public eye there could be other issues... but it's never a good idea to voluntarily send items you don't wish to be 'republished.' That's a separate issue and an argument I might make as well... although it may be weak... note that a right to publish and distribute intellectual property can be separated from the right to own and use a copy of the property.
 
In this particular case it concerns a person who posted her own nude pics publically online and has admited that she had no care for rumors at that time. She has been in countless sex-related issues, some of which are similair to this case. Others included online exposure to private parties as well as uploading pictures to private FTP's (without prior permission of the FTP owner).
 
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