Month: May 2012 (Page 4 of 6)

The right to privacy is a relatively modern international legal concept. Until the late 19^th century gentlemen used the strictly codified practice of the duel to settle their disputes over embarrassing exposés of their private lives.

The first celebrity to convert his personal affront into a legal suit was the author of The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas père, who in 1867 sued a photographer who had attempted to register copyright in some steamy images of Dumas with the ‘Paris Hilton’ of the day – 32-year-old actress Adah Isaacs Menken. Continue reading

What is meant by the term public interest? And does it trump a public figure’s right to privacy? Richard Ackland casts a gimlet eye over the concept and the difference between the media and judicial view

“That’s for our readers to tell … That will be determined by the number of people that buy the paper“. So said the deputy editor of The Sunday Telegraph, Helen McCabe, when asked by Media Watch in 2009 what was the public interest in her paper publishing those pouty photos of a young Pauling Hanson, in lingerie. Except, as it expensively transpired, it was not Pauline Hanson. Continue reading