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Post by TrixieFirecracker on Apr 11, 2003 4:34:17 GMT -5
 And so more rich get richer. ----- From BBC.CO.UK 60seconds newsletter > Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas have won their privacy action against celebrity magazine Hello! over unauthorised photographs of their New York wedding in November 2000.
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Post by ShariVari on Apr 11, 2003 12:47:04 GMT -5
She was suing Hello! not a school full of Romanian orphans. Good luck to her.
It's all a bit of a damp squib really - everyone was saying that it could herald a new age of a right to privacy and a radical shift in the nature of the popular press but it was decided on a technical commercial contracts basis instead.
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Post by Born Under A Bad Song on Apr 11, 2003 16:31:18 GMT -5
I thought they had a good point, it's been reported with contempt as celeb gossip has become a staple of the British media and hello is central to that. They waivered their right to privacy because they thought people would be interested enough to want to see pictures of their wedding. They were correct about this. The Douglases made a deal which was intended to give them an agreed measure of publicity and earn a favourite charity some money. They didn't get what they hoped for, another magazine took unwelcome pictures, made them public and made money of the back of them. Why were they villanised for taking to court a magazine that had profited from acting intrusivly and arrogantly? I'm suprised that so many celebs don't take action over intrusive paparizzi shots, just because the public are interested dosen't mean it is in the public interest to see these types of pictures. Living a life in the public eye because you act, for example, shouldn't mean you lose entitlement to have a private life.
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Post by ShariVari on Apr 11, 2003 17:05:22 GMT -5
It's a strong argument, and one that would be supported by French law but the UK doesn't have a proper right to privacy on the books. The Human Rights Act does contain a section on privacy and family life but that's only as strong as the judges interpret it to be. Quite a few people thought this could be a benchmark case - meaning that celebs could legitimately restrict intrusive reporting, but it didn't turn out that way.
Interestingly, the whole "mystery footballer" injunction earlier this year could prove to be more important if it is upheld and followed by the higher courts, i can't see that happening though.
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And so more rich get richer.
