MPAA Gives 'It's Complicated' An R Rating Because It Shows Pot Might Make You Giggle

W Korea Uses Demi Moore Photo... With A Different Hip -- So Which One Is Edited?

from the uh-oh dept

Tue, Dec 29th 2009 6:06am — Mike Masnick

So you may recall that last week, the story spread about how Demi Moore's lawyers flipped out and sent ridiculous (laughably so) legal threats to a few blogs that were discussing whether or not Moore's photo on the cover of W magazine had been digitally retouched and, if so, how poor a job the retouching was. Most specifically, there was the point that her hip looked out of place. None of the conversation (which had mostly died out a month before Ms. Moore's lawyers got involved) suggested anything even remotely negative about Ms. Moore herself -- but about the potentially poor editing job on the photo itself.

Of course, once the story was pushed back into the news by Moore's lawyers, a second look at the evidence suggested quite clearly that the image had, in fact, been retouched (not that there's anything wrong with that). And, now, the story gets even more bizarre. Anthony Citrano, one of the bloggers being threatened by Moore's lawyers -- and who has (reasonably) demanded a complete retraction and apology from Moore's lawyers -- got in touch to let us know that the Korea edition of W magazine just happened to have fixed the hip problem on their cover version of the same photo.

As Citrano points out, this leads to one of two possibilities:

Citrano was correct all along that the version with the funky hip a bad image edit or...
By Moore's own lawyer's explanation, W in Korea had defamed Demi Moore by editing her image (which the lawyers insisted needed no editing)

Either way, at least one of those images was apparently edited, and Citrano's still waiting for that apology and retraction...

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Filed Under: cease & desist, defamation, demi moore, photo editing, south korea

16 Comments

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Anonymous Poster, 29 Dec 2009 @ 6:27am

Fat chance Moore and her people will apologize.
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old farts, 29 Dec 2009 @ 6:28am

SHES OLD ENOUGH TO BE GRANDMA
yea like who cares already
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btr1701 (profile), 29 Dec 2009 @ 7:17am

Re: SHES OLD ENOUGH TO BE GRANDMA
GILF
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Dark Helmet (profile), 29 Dec 2009 @ 7:21am

Re: Re: SHES OLD ENOUGH TO BE GRANDMA
"GILF"

Please, you know Bruce Willis tore her up and turned her into a pair of floppy beef curtains....

Okay...that's the grossest thing I've ever said....
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Dec 2009 @ 8:04am

Re: Re: Re: SHES OLD ENOUGH TO BE GRANDMA
dude that is totaly sexy to most West Koreans
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Yakko Warner, 29 Dec 2009 @ 8:12am

Re: Re: Re: SHES OLD ENOUGH TO BE GRANDMA
On the plus side, I no longer have to worry about what to do for lunch today -- suddenly, I'm not hungry.
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interval, 29 Dec 2009 @ 9:25am

I'm still trying to understand how some one can be so self conscience that they would jump into a media sh@tstorm about a photo retouch that looks so... minor. I mean, this is a retouch that is so innocuous that I can't see it. Being no eagle-eye I have spent real quality time out of life analyzing these picture and loops for the big edit everyone is talking about and honestly, I don't see it. Why would anyone in there right mind, on EITHER side, spend time wooting about this nonsense?
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ChimpBush McHitlerBurton, 29 Dec 2009 @ 10:16am

Re: Re: Re: SHES OLD ENOUGH TO BE GRANDMA
"Please, you know Bruce Willis tore her up and turned her into a pair of floppy beef curtains...."

You can fix that with Photoshop.

CBMHB
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ChimpBush McHitlerBurton, 29 Dec 2009 @ 10:23am

Re: Lesson for Demi...
Demi,

Your legal counsel lives for one reason only; to make money off of you by "representing" you in legal issues. If you have no legal issues, they make no money. So here's what you do from now on.

1) If they bring something like this to your attention in the future, ignore them and/or tell them to stop gold digging.

2) If you are EVER tempted to ask them for their advice on something as STUPID as this, STOP. Count to ten. Slap yourself. Put the phone down. Eat a bon-bon.

You'll be glad you did.

(The bon-bon might even help fill out that hip)

CBMHB
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The Anti-Mike, 29 Dec 2009 @ 1:49pm

Wait...
why does this matter, anyway? All you are doing is giving exposure to a celeb that doesn't need it.
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Someone, 29 Dec 2009 @ 3:03pm

Re: Wait...
Bloggers getting sued & slapped with cease & desists for expressing their opinion - that doesn't matter? What an annoying attitude. Can you be serious? This goes a bit deeper than just a hip, no?
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The Anti-Mike (profile), 29 Dec 2009 @ 10:48pm

Re: Re: Wait...
It shouldn't matter because the opinion didn't matter to start with. Does it matter if it is photoshopped or not? Why did the original blogger even bother?

Further, why bother to keep kicking it around here? It is a pointless legal exercise, which the blogger appears to be desperately trying to parlay into some sort of internet 15 minutes of website traffic.

This is somewhere between navel gazing and a circle jerk.
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Marcus Carab (profile), 30 Dec 2009 @ 8:56am

Re: Re: Re: Wait...
BoingBoing has a good post discussing why they feel this matters, citing a past incident involving Iranian defense photos that were heavily doctored but accepted as genuine by most news outlets.

Yes, the discussion at hand is only about an image of a celebrity on the cover of a fashion magazine. But the ability to freely discuss the provenance and technical history of a photo, including those with more crucial news value—say, images of detainee abuse, or Iranian missles—is a freedom we believe should be preserved.

I'm not trying to start another argument with you, by the way. I just think it's a good post on the subject.
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Questionsall, 30 Dec 2009 @ 9:03am

3xRe: Wait
Anti-Mike: you're correct to a point. It started as a bit of silly banter. PhotoShop nerds (mea culpa) enjoy pointing out dreadful work, especially stuff that gets published in a major glossy or is part of major brand's campaign. Sure, it's arrogant and nit-picky, but awfully fun. Where Moore messed up, and where this became "newsworthy" was her hypersenstive cease-and-desist letter. Mr. Cintrano hardly has encouraged this coverage, and would rather it go away.
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Marcus Carab (profile), 30 Dec 2009 @ 10:04am

Re: 3xRe: Wait
I'm not even sure I think it is arrogant and nitpicky. Designers who work for major (or even minor) publications have an audience, and when you have an audience you can be held accountable to them.

Here's my attempt at an analogy: let's say the person writing up the interview with Moore had used the standard ellipsis omission to shorten one of her quotes ("blah blah blah ... blah blah") - but in doing so had accidentally created a grammar or usage error: the kind that your average W reader might not notice, but that other writers and avid language fans would. You can be sure that in that case the magazine would be flooded with letters pointing out the error, and though it might feel a little bit like nitpicking, it's also important to keep the publication from getting complacent.
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sprearson81 (profile), 9 Jun 2012 @ 6:40am

All this chatter for that?
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