French Court Detaches Itself From Reality, Demands Tabloid Turn Over 'Original' Topless Kate Middleton Photos

from the Google-Image-Search-ordered-to-destroy-all-negatives-in-its-possession dept

In what has to be the most purely symbolic decision handed down by a court since King Solomon's derailing of a vexing child custody battle, a French court has ordered the tabloid that originally published the topless photos of Kate Middleton to perform an act of contrition that is actually more pointless than prosecuting this case itself:

The French magazine Closer, which published topless photos of the Duchess of Cambridge, must hand over the original pictures and pay a 10,000-euro ($13,000) fine each time the images are published again, a French court ruled.

The magazine, owned by the Berlusconi family’s Arnoldo Mondadori Editore Spa (MN), was sued after it printed a series of photos of the royal couple sunbathing on a private French estate. The tabloid was ordered to pay Kate 2,000 euros in expenses and an additional 10,000 euros each day it fails to turn over the original images.

Perhaps the judge (Judge Jean-Michel Hayat) spent the past few days enjoying some fine film noir, watching negatives go up in smoke in starkly lit ashtrays as the music rose and screen went soft focus momentarily as things, indeed, appeared to be working out for the troubled heroine. This explanation is as good as any for an order that completely ignores the reality of the situation. The picture is out there [indicates everywhere, but especially the internet] and no amount of fines or orders to produce the "originals" (on what? an SD card?) is putting those breasts back under proper British clothing.

It's not even a problem specific to the internet era. This wouldn't have flown 30 years ago when people had access to both newpapers and copiers. For that matter, this type of order has been outdated since the point photographs could be affixed to paper and distributed to readers/gawkers. You can't simply undo a mass distribution of "unapproved" photos. Not now. Not 30 years ago. Not 100 years ago. The photos are everywhere.

“Clearly, the harm has been done,” said Christopher Mesnooh, an American lawyer working in France for Field Fisher Waterhouse. “Thousands, now tens of thousands of copies, are now in public circulation. A legal decision is a wonderful thing to obtain and the royal couple did exactly what they should have done. But you know the magazine is out there and I suspect most of you have already seen copies of that magazine, so the basic, the initial harm, has been done.”

So, it all boils down to making sure the royal family is given some sort of... something for its "troubles." There will likely be more of these utterly disconnected decisions as the royal family may also pursue legal action in Italy and Ireland, not to mention pursuing criminal charges against the photographer. But I suppose it's a misguided (and amusing) effort to be doing something, especially considering the relationship between the royal family and its paparazzi has been anything but pleasant.

Filed Under: france, kate middleton, photos, royal family

How The Royal Family Got The World To Look At Naked Photos Of Kate Middleton [Updated]

from the streisand-effect dept

Update: Good points made in the comments that suggest that the graph below is actually more about the original news coming out in the evening, and the national UK press running the story in the morning -- rather than in response to the threat to sue. While the legal action certainly didn't help push the story under the rug (it's the only way I heard about it, for instance), it looks like we (picking up on the Forbes piece) went too far in assuming that the threat to sue is what resulted in the attention. The original story remains below.

I don't tend to follow news like this, so there could be plenty of reasons why I missed the report that the wife of Prince William, Kate Middleton, had been photographed topless while on vacation with William in France. Of course, it could also be because almost no one paid attention to the story... until the royal family decided to sue. As Kash Hill correctly notes, this seems like yet another perfect example of the Streisand Effect in action. The story got very little attention... until legal action was threatened. It may be upsetting and embarrassing, but it's difficult to see how suing makes things better. All it did was get a lot more people looking for the photos and put a lot more attention on the story itself. I know that, at times when someone is wronged, there's a feeling that they must do something, but does it really make sense to "do something" if it also makes you much worse off?

Filed Under: kate middleton, lawsuit, naked photos, prince william, royal family, streisand effect

Would Fashion Copyright Have Made Kate Middleton's Knockoff Wedding Dress Illegal?

from the oops dept

Right after the big royal wedding a few months back, Susan Scafidi, the law professor who is one of the leading supporters of putting in place a totally unnecessary and economically damaging "fashion copyright," used the wedding to support her arguments for fashion copyright. She suggested how unfortunate it would be that Kate Middleton's wedding dress would now be knocked off and used by other brides. It seems the "Kate Middleton's dress" example is popular among supporters of fashion copyright. In the NY Times, Steven Kolb, director of the Council for Fashion Designers of America (the main organization pushing for this bill), described Kate Middleton's wedding dress as the perfect example of what fashion copyright could protect:

Mr. Kolb said that Kate Middleton’s wedding dress would probably be a good example

Interesting. Except... as Johanna Blakley points out, it turns out that Kate Middleton's dress... was a knockoff itself! See the dress on the right? That's Kate Middleton in her dress. On the left? That's Isabella Orsini, goddaughter of the Italian Prime Minister, marrying Belgian Prince Edouardo de Ligne... two years ago. The dresses were made by different designers. Orsini's by Gerald Watelet, Middleton's by Sarah Burton. As Blakley notes:

We’d all like to think that we can recognize newness and originality when we see it, but it’s actually quite hard to do. Even Steven Kolb, who is completely immersed in the fashion world, had trouble choosing a good example of a dress that is different from all designs that have preceded it.

And, of course, there's really nothing new under the sun in many of these cases. For example, some people have pointed out that both dresses appear quite similar to the dress worn at another famous royal wedding... over fifty years ago. See the photo below of Grace Kelly marrying the Prince of Monaco:

Filed Under: fashion copyright, kate middleton, knockoffs, wedding dress