Back in the 1970’s there was a TV show on American TV called the Mary Tyler Moore show. It was set in Minneapolis and Mary lived in an apartment in a large house on Lake of the Isles in Minneapolis which was shown in the opening credits montage. Of course the actual show was shot on a soundstage somewhere.

The show was popular, and after the first year, the house became famous. People stood outside at all hours taking pictures of the house, and idiots kept coming to the front door and asking for Mary and so forth. The lady who owned the house got fed up, and the next year they wanted to re-film some shots for the opening sequence, but she opposed them.

However, they said she couldn’t deny them the ability to stand on the public street and film the outside of the house, and there was nothing she could do. Well, almost nothing…

This was during Richard Nixon’s Watergate troubles, so the homeowner put up large “Impeach Nixon” banners all over the house. That was the year that Mary moved to a high-rise apartment building.

Use them for what?

Republishing a photo/image/artwork(henceforth referred to as image) no matter the source, that has not been “released into the public domain” either explicitly by the creator or by expiration of the copyright, is generally a violation of the creators copyright. “Released into the public domain” does NOT simply mean available on the internet.

There are exception to this depending your reason for republishing the image. If you are critiquing the image/aspects of the image itself, for example the composition or other artistic quality, that would be covered under “fair use”. As would modifying the image in a manner that can easily be seen as “parody” of the original image. If you are using a photo of Epcot Center to advertise your travel agencies special on Orlando vacations, you had better have a usage license from the image creator(unless CC or expired ©) as well as a release from Disney(Epcot, even its appearance, is their copyrighted intellectual property). Disney almost sued a daycare for having its characters painted on the exterior walls.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Without knowing what you mean by “use” it is nearly impossible to give a complete answer.

You have 2 questions.

1. Image capture: Yes, it is not prohibited by statute to take a picture of someone without their consent, limits:
1. someone’s privates in private without their permission,
2. a child’s privates in private,
3. someone inside a specifically demarcated military facility as prohibiting photography inside.
2. Image publishing: Yes, it is not prohibited by statute to share an image, blurred or not, risks of civil law suit:
1. publishing as commercial representation requires the subject’s approval,
2. misrepresentation by words with the picture may be slander or defamation.

Note: local law enforcement and courts may behave any way they want to, and it’s up to you to fight them and hope for the best.

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Question added by Anonymous Quora Sock Puppet “… Is it legal to take a picture of someone without their consent but blur out their face and send it to someone else? (Is it legal to take a picture of someone without their consent but blur out their face and send it to someone else?) …” #904177455 · Thank · Report · 14 Nov 2019 4:43 PM

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Is it illegal to take pictures of someone’s house?

(US-specific answer)

The answer very greatly depends on local laws in place for that area. You may be in compliance with Federal law and be violating a state law or a city ordinance where you are, so please take this answer with a good pinch of salt. Always check the laws where you are before you find yourself on the wrong side of one.

In the United States, in general, the rule of thumb is if you can see it, you can snap it.

This rule does not apply in all areas and in all buildings (especially federal buildings and military installations), so for now, I’ll just focus on residences.

This is always a good rule of thumb for residences: if you can stand on the sidewalk and see the residence, in general you can take a picture of it. If you can’t see the residence from a public access way (such as a sidewalk or a street), you can’t breach barriers on someone’s property in order to take pictures. For example, if there is a row of tall hedges blocking the view from the street or the sidewalk, you can’t push your way through the hedges and take a picture.

However, drones change all that. From the street, if drone flying is allowed in that area, you can fly a drone straight up and look over hedges to get a picture. You cannot fly over the person’s property to get a picture, but you can fly over the street or the sidewalk, straight up, and get a picture.

No it is not.

You must first obtain the permission of the copyright holder to use his/her image for commercial purposes. You would want to get that permission in writing to protect yourself from future legal issues or claims.

The copyright holder will probably require payment for the use of the image for commercial purposes - or they may refuse your request. It’s their image and therefore their decision.

“Taking your chances” that you won’t get caught and using the image(s) in question without obtaining permission is not a smart move. In doing so, you open yourself up to a copyright infringement lawsuit, which can be costly in the extreme to the accused (that would be you).

Yes, some are, but the person who tries to use it will not likely get a good response since they have no relationship with the people on the list at all.

Trying to get the attention of those people, not getting them mad enough to report you for spam, and getting them to take the favorable actions you want them to take, is not always so easy as some would try to make it sound.

Plus, one gets a much lower response and conversion rate when one sends an offer to those with whom they have no relationship, than one gets when they send an offer to their own list, or when they have a third party send the offer with their endorsement to the list of the third party.

In other words,

• if you have no relationship with the people on the list you are sending your offer to, you get very low response and conversion rates.
• if you build a good relationship, you get a much higher response and conversion rate.
• If you have your offer sent with the endorsement of a third party to a list that that third party already has a good relationship with you also get a much higher response and conversion rate.

Sometimes you can get a higher response and conversion rate from a third party endorsement than you can with the same offer sent to your own list. Often this happens because the third party has a stronger relationship with their list than you do with yours. Sometimes it is simply the fact that someone else is recommending it that gives it that extra credibility and hence the extra push for them to buy.

So instead of just buying a list, you are much better off having the owner send your offer on your behalf under THEIR name. This way you get their endorsement which helps to build trust amongst the recipients and hence a better response and conversion rate. And you avoid being labelled as a spammer which can carry some huge penalties. Plus, anyone who responds favorably to your offer now becomes part of your own list.

Once you have your own list with whom you already have a good relationship and have built up a measure of trust, you can profit from it by sending your own offers to the people on it, as well as those of other people giving them your endorsement and for which you can collect a commission or advertising fee.

So instead of just selling a list, sell endorsed emails instead.

As long as you have things which will continue to build the trust you have between the people on your list and yourself, you can continue sending such offers and continue profiting over and over and over again.

This can work out much, much better for you than if you simply "sell the list".

Hope this helps and if you need anything else, just ask.

May all your days be profitable!

“The Internet” is not really an “entity” (a thing with distinct and independent existence). The Internet is made up of many thousands of independent networks — collectively they form the Internet.

That’s important to understand. That and jurisdiction: as the Internet is a global communications platform.

So… each network… is subject to laws/policies of the countries that they operate in, etc. The answer will vary from country to country. Generally speaking, the companies that you give data to: they have some form of ownership of that. Unless you live in one of the few countries that gives you the right to some of your data.

The United States has very limited protection for people: corporations basically do what they want: read their policies. There is a lot of similarity in their policies. It’s a complex issue, one that the US Government seems unable to really grasp: a bunch of old folk in power that just don’t understand much about today's world. Overall, law hasn’t caught up with reality yet.

section 230 absolves social media from being litigated against because of its content However her is the catch ,,

social media stated at the beginning that they were merely a platform for you and I to communicate …

They supplied that platform and we supplied the content , which means they were a neutral party and did not editorialize or manipulate the platform ..

When they started to politicize and criticize , and stopped groups they did not like for their politics , or their political writings , they crossed the guarantees of their charter ..

They made decisions about who could write , what writing was correct and what should be discarded , and made little pretense about their liberal leftist agenda..

That is Ok because it is their platform , but they entered a different phase of their business model , and made changes and eliminated content they disagreed with ..

This has now made them a publisher and not just a platform for you and I , and as such are under the same laws as any publisher , in that for content which is removed or altered , is subject to scrutiny and possible litigation … .

Information isn't property described as being “owned”.

It is “known”. And barring privacy legislation in your country, free rights allow those that know it to share it with others of make personal use of that knowledge.

But it gets really complicated when we switch from “information” to data. Data is stored, but not necessarily known. But is it “owned”? In the way intellectual property is owned perhaps.

The law really hasn't settled on an answer to that yet.

As I said, it's complicated. Some data is personal, relating to a person. Some of that data is “private”, like your bank records and medical data. But other data is public, like your deed records, marriage certificate, and home address.

And what would “ownership” mean? That you can restrict others from sharing it, under some penalty of law? How does that work with Facebook where you are publishing that information on their service, but then you want them to keep it from reaching other people?

It's really complicated. Society hasn't figured out how this should work yet. And given that it took 150 years after the printing press was invented to create copyright, this will surely take some time.

The ‘Internet’ is not a single thing. To make sense of it you must split it into the visible and invisible. The Internet proper is merely a network of connections between different areas. This for the most part is invisible to the user.

And then there is the visible part of the internet, not really a part of the internet but a connected node on the Internet, just like you. These are the Services of the internet, The Facebook, Google, Twitter, Instagram these are ‘sites’, not network elements and for each service you usually subscribe to them. Each carries a EULA (an End User Licence Agreement) These EULAs will ask for certain data, and permissions to that data, and you must agree to them to use their services.

These services are not ‘public’ and when you grant them the ‘rights’ to your data, that service then ‘owns’ your data. Not all your data is owned by every service, you give it away in pieces to every service you subscribe to.

Legally it began as your property, but you have surrender it to the various services you are using ON the Internet.

From my knowledge Facebook (or Instagram) never sells data, they use this data as a metrics. If you have done a Facebook campaign, you will come across many metrics to target the best suited audience, these metrics include age, gender, location, smartphone brand, likes, life events and many more. Please note when you use a app which requires your personal details, Facebook sends us a permission which we generally approve (screenshot attached).

This is how brands get our information, but again its not call 'selling of data'.

In some cases, you may be able to file a criminal or civil lawsuit against the perpetrator. There are also a few ways you can get the content removed from the internet that may not require a lawsuit at all.

Top 3 ways to get intimate images removed from the internet are:

• Send a DMCA takedown notice,
• Report the intimate or explicit image to the hosting platform and/or search engines, or
• Hire a professional P.I to successfully remove the personal pictures.

Need help with internet content removal? Feel free to contact me. With a practice dedicated to internet content removal, our team at McRae P.I. Firm has the right tools and tactics to help you remove all types of negative online content. We can even guarantee content removals from specific types of websites such as shaming, cheater, gossip, and other smear websites.

One of the ways is to directly write to the webmasters of those sites. Many of them will oblige by removing it. This more or less does not work with porn sites. However writing to the webmaster is important.

Write to search engines like Google using this form Request to remove your personal information on Google

Give reasons as asked in the form and they will within a week delete links to those pictures. You need to mention that you wrote to the concerned webmaster. Have the URL and a screen shot of the relevant picture to upload to Google.

Another way is to approach the cyber/IT cells of the local police. There should be one at the state level. The local SP or someone in the state police headquarters should be able to guide you. A letter or notice from the police cyber cell to the website should help in removing those pictures.

You could also try sending an Advocate notice to an Indian or Foreign site to remove any such pictures and if they do not comply, sending a complaint to the IT regulator in those countries.

U.S. perspective:

The U.S. essentially has no privacy laws. The few laws it does have are VERY narrow in scope: HIPPA (health record privacy), COPPA (no tracking of underage children data online), FERPA (school record privacy).

None of these touch on social media.

Keep in mind that limiting how a company can use data that it rightfully owns is a free speech limitation. If it wants to publish it all publicly, or just share it with a single party, they have that right. That’s how free speech works. Free speech is not an unlimited right (which is why fraud, libel, and inciting riots is illegal), but a clear public safety issue has to be made.

Does a breech of privacy actually cause harm to someone in the way that libel or fraud do? So far it seems that this is not the case.

You can send legally-obtained pictures and those not considered private without consent. In order to know what qualifies as a legal photo, I recommend you search on quora or on websites that belong to legal authorities.

However, just to give you an idea, anything considered private would be anything involving a photo taken in a private setting, such as the person’s home. A legally-obtained photo is one you took in a public place or one for which you have the rights, or the right to use.

I am not a legal authority and what I say here is a guide, not advice. Always verify with the proper legal entity to make sure you are well-informed. A platform like quora is useful, but should never replace official websites or authorities.

This is actually an area of undecided law. There is still a lot of question as to whether CCTV footage is a “creative work” that has copyright protection.

Still, you are giving grounds to someone to sue you. Are you really willing to fight this out in court and hope you can win?

Actually, you’re answer to that doesn’t matter. Because, you see, you said this was for a film. No film distributor will distribute a film that fails to pass “clearance”. Unless each and every frame of your film has the proper rights and permissions, no distributor will touch it. Because they don’t want to have distribution pulled by a court injunction and have to wait additional years in order for the case to conclude. That would be a massive waste of advertising dollars, in addition to all of the other problems with this scenario.

Several in fact, and then there are the Regulations. Take a look at https://www.hg.org/internet-law.html // Which part of the government sets Internet and software security laws? // Restoring Internet Freedom and numerous articles listed at CanDoFinance Regulations governing the operation of the internet, ISPs and such in the US are available in the CFRs, which are always available through the net via THOMAS, the information name for the Library of Congress which was began via a bequest by Thomas Jefferson. A good guide to finding regulations via Thomas is https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2014/11/how-to-trace-federal-regulations-a-research-guide/ .

Limiting Condition: The querent did not identify a jurisdiction in the query, and everything above is only applicable in the US.

A well-written question always depends on the querent doing at least a minimum of research before posting the query. This query is so broad as to encompass the world, making it impossible to answer without a revision to clarify the data missing at present.

I am always wary about a query that looks like it is taken from someone’s homework. Quorans are wonderful about sharing their knowledge and experience, but they are not anyone’s unpaid homework creators. That would be unfair to the schools and instructors, and to the student as well, since the students are denied the opportunity to learn how to do research and to write, edit and be graded on a researched and well-expressed response.

Therefore, as a general rule the querent should do at least preliminary research to be able to draft a query that includes enough limiting data to permit something less than a global response. That said, I have no idea whether the query is a homework question, but I would suggest that the querent at least amend the answer to reduce the present global request to a specific jurisdiction, since the applicable laws would differ considerably.