1998-11-06
You've probably heard the news, right? Self-righteous, simplistic-minded Dr. Laura, who tells her listeners what God says they should do, once posed naked for pictures by a former boyfriend, and now those pictures are all over the internet. They are even being posted in the Dr. Laura newsgroup.
Well, you can see worse things on the Internet, I suppose.
Dr. Laura first denied that the pictures existed. They were composites! Just like Bill Clinton! Then she admitted they existed, but they were stolen. Then she said she had the copyright on those pictures, so, they can't be shown without her permission and she doesn't give you her permission.
Copyright? Well, what do you know? If you take a picture of a bum on the street--except in Quebec--you don't need any permission to publish this picture. By being in the street, you see, where everybody could see him, he was making himself "public". So, he has no right to prevent you from taking his picture or showing what you saw to somebody else.
It's a little different for a model. Models have to sign a release, to give you permission to use the pictures you take of them. That's because they are not posing in the middle of the street-- they are posing in a studio. You are paying them to pose. You have to get their permission.
Was Dr. Laura once a model? I don't think so. Looks like she was just being nice to her former boyfriend. He wanted some dirty pictures he could keep as souvenirs.
The point is, I guess, that it doesn't matter. Dr. Laura could get a hundred lawyers working on this full-time and they wouldn't be able to stop the pictures. They are all over the world, on servers, in news groups, in web sites... everywhere. One little mistake, and kablooie! The whole world knows. People who have never heard Dr. Laura's radio show can now see her naked by simply dialing into DejaNews.
Tell me-- at this moment-- are you trying to remember if you ever posed naked for anyone? Hmmm. You might be smart to post the pictures yourself. That way, at least you don't look like you're hiding anything from anybody.
Copyright © 1998 Bill Van Dyk All rights reserved.