I'm going to go out on a limb, and guess that the answers to those three questions are, "No", "Nope", and, "What are they, three more sequels to his good books?" In other words, "No". I think it's safe to say that we all agree that buying a copy of someone's personal schedule and tracking their movements is better known as stalking. Reading someone's private e-mails about a personal matter is a blatant invasion of privacy. And intercepting a manuscript and publishing as your own is both stealing and plagiarism (and in this case, just plain dumb).
Why is it, then, that so many people are OK with celebrity photos being stolen and sold off without permission? More than OK, many people eagerly seek out and...um, "download" these photos (if you know what I mean).
I am speaking, of course, of the posting of nude photos of various celebrities over the weekend, including Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. 4chan and Reddit exploded (not literally, unfortunately) with activity, and Google searches for "Jennifer Lawrence" skyrocketed.
I will admit that when I first saw the news, I was intrigued. I am not embarrassed to say that I appreciate the human body, especially that of an attractive woman. Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are all quite attractive, and all women whom I would not object to seeing naked. Pushing my honesty further, I did a single Google search that turned up articles, but I didn't read any of them. I stopped and backed off. I can't say I had any altruistic or noble reason for doing so. I just didn't see the need to go out of my way to see some naked women.
As I browsed Facebook that morning, I ran across a tweet from Lena Dunham:
Remember, when you look at these pictures you are violating these women again and again. It's not okay.
— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) September 1, 2014
My first reaction was to scoff, but it did make me think about the entire situation, and look into further opinions, from people such as Mara Wilson and other internet writers. These photos were not intended for the public. They were not a part of some magazine shoot, or some day out in public. They were private shots intended for their own private use. They were stored on a secure server, to which only these people should have had access, as opposed to a photo gallery on Flickr or Facebook, or stills from a movie. The method by which these photos were obtained was flat-out illegal. The posting of them on public internet sites might not be illegal, but it sure is scummy. Looking at them is pretty much just as scummy.Let's stop blaming the victims, too. I've heard from numerous sources that they shouldn't have taken the photos if they didn't want them posted. That might win the award for dumbest thing said on the internet this year, but then, it has a lot of competition. How does that even make sense? On the surface, it's a meaningless truism, akin to "the best way to avoid getting a computer virus is to never turn the computer on". Digging deeper, it's far too close to arguing that someone was raped because the way they were dressed implied they wanted to have sex, even though they refused and resisted. Yes, they took photos of themselves, and left them on storage devices that were hackable. No, that does not give anyone but them the right to access, download, and then post those photos.
Who am I to tell people on the internet what not to look at and what not to download? I would say, "I'm no one," but what does that even mean? What does the original question even mean? Are there people on the internet who do have the ability to tell others what they can and can't do? Most forums have a moderator, but in general, there is no regulation on the internet. In light of that, we, the ordinary nobodies that make up the bulk of the internet must regulate ourselves. So, I say this as an average, regular guy: Don't look at the leaked photos. Don't download them.
This highlights a larger problem with the internet in general, though, and that is the fact that much of the internet is seemingly built on theft in the guise of "Free Culture". Free Culture means that we can build on what has come before. Cover songs, mashups, sampling, remakes of older movies, spin-off novels. These things borrow from the past to advance our culture. Support for the idea of Free Culture grew in response to an increase in restrictions on usage due to copyright laws that many believe restrict creativity more than they protect the original content creator. "Free" as in freedom to use, not "free to download and re-post".
Many people have latched onto this idea as justification for copyright infringement of all sorts. Many websites now merely aggregate articles and lists and videos from other sites and try to pass it off as their own. File sharers rip their CDs and DVDs and post the files online so that other users can download them for free. Lyrics sites post song lyrics, then take in ad revenue based on people visiting their site. Porn sites take videos from DVDs, photos from magazine, and both from pay sites, and post them on aggregating web pages for anyone who can pass the dreaded (read: pointless) age verification test.
That's where the real problem lies with this situation. Most of the people downloading these photos have spent the past decade repeating the mantra, "Why would anyone pay for porn?" Sites like 4chan and Reddit are havens for people posting ill-gotten nasties. Browse the site for a few minutes and you're bound to see multiple threads asking for complete sets of some model, or complete video of some scene. None of them have been paid for. Many are downloaded from other similar sites, or from a file sharing service. It's never mentioned, but it's all copyright infringement. It's gotten to the point where some video companies have tacked on a plea at the beginning of videos asking people to actually pay for the video, not just watch a free copy. What's fun is that these pleas are left in the pirated copy that is then distributed.
In this environment, what makes a leaked photo of Jennifer Lawrence any different than a leaked centerfold pictorial? What makes it any different than a pirated copy of the XXX parody of "The Avengers"? All were illegally obtained. Downloading any of them constitutes a copyright violation. So what's the big deal?
The big deal is the expectation of privacy. The big deal is consent. (The big deal is also that some of the women in the photos may have been underage when the photos were taken, adding another layer of sleaze and illegality to all of this.) The Playboy centerfold poses naked for you to see of her own volition. The actors and actresses in the XXX parody film are hired to be filmed having sex with the expectation that you will watch it. These celebrities took pictures for themselves, or for their significant others in private, with their own equipment, and as such, they have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Further, they've given no consent for the pictures to be viewed by anyone other than their intended recipient.
Snatching those photos from celebrities' personal accounts is akin to sneaking into their home to take photos of them. It's peeping tom-ism. To seek out, view, and download those photos is to give tacit approval to this kind of behavior. If it is not criminal, it is borderline, and it is most certainly sleazy.
If there is a silver lining to this dark iCloud, it's that this has made me stop and think about the way in which I use the internet, and the way I think about the content found therein. The fact is that this isn't the first such leak. This has been going on for years, even back before the internet, when such pictures would be sold to less-than-reputable magazines (though without anyone really knowing about it until the photos were published), with people mostly just looking the other way. Maybe hat the focus of all of this is Jennifer Lawrence, and she is pretty much America's Sweetheart right now, will help us realize how terrible we're being when we allow these things to happen, or, even worse, take part in them. I know that I have.
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