Legal Question in Constitutional Law in California
I sent my ex boyfriend nude pictures of me we broke up and he emailed them to people shortly after they were posted on at least 3 separate websites that are for exposing nude pictures of women and slandering them. I contacted the websites about removing the images but not ONE of them responded to removing the images. So I looked up the websites hosting information and contacted their host the images have still have not been removed nor have I received a response about weather they would be removed or not.
These websites have posted my personal information... Emails, links to my websites & other social networks I belong to. It has caused a lot of strangers to harass me and call me slanderous names. It has also affected my modeling career and cost me to lose a job because a coworker googled the images and they were then pass around by people a work. People were talking bad about me and it got to the point where I could no longer deal with the bad talking and I was forced to resign.
Its been embarassing... I do not want to sue my ex I don't think that would go over well its been a long time since he emailed out the pictures and he is not the person who put them on these website (or at least i dont have proof of that)
My question actually is regarding the websites that posted them and did not respond to removing them. What course of legal action can I take against them. And is it legal for a website to allow people to post nude pictures of women/men with out their consent for the sole purpose of slandering them?
I want to put a stop to people feeling like they can just go online and post naked pictures of people without their consent and maybe shut these websites down or at least let these people know there is a consequence to pay for invading someones privacy and slandering their name and allowing people to harass them online.
So where would I start?
2 Answers from Attorneys
I'll try to help you out. Why dont we send a letter to the websites and their hosts - and see if that helps. Please send an email to my office.
Best,
Daniel Bakondi, Esq.
415-450-0424
The Law Office of Daniel Bakondi, APLC
870 Market Street, Suite 1161
San Francisco CA 94102
http://www.danielbakondi.com
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Unfortunately you do not have a case for slander. A key element of a cause of action for slander is that what is said or published (when published it's called lible) must be untrue. A photograph, unless it has been altered, is necessarily true. The same is true for accurate personal information. So, if all your ex did was pass the pictures around, you couldn't sue him even if you wanted to.
What you may have claims for, however, are variations on invasion of privacy. Presumably these websites are commercial sites, not someone's hobby. It is illegal to use a person's image or other personal information for commercial gain without consent. That is probably the strongest invasion of privacy claim you would have. It is also an invasion of privacy to use personal information in a way that places them in a "false light." In other words taking something (relatively) innocent and using it to make it look like something about the person is true that is not. I'm not sure if you have a case there, but it is worth looking into.
Your biggest problem is going to be tracking down the real people behind the sites and getting them into court. More than half the time these sleazy sites are run off-shore out of reach of U.S. law. It sounds, however, like you have already done a lot of legwork on this, which is good. According to your zip code you are in Pinole. I have offices in Walnut Creek and Oakland, and I would be happy to meet with you for a half hour at no obligation, to go over what you have in detail and see if we can formulate a legal strategy for putting a stop to this.
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