Bob W. wrote: > One thing it doesn't do is advance in any way what was changing into a > potentially interested discussion about the recent French laws, which I > haven't seen discussed here. Whoever was ultimately responsible for the > car crash it doesn't change the fact that the supercharged emotional > reactions to the crash were probably at least partly responsible for the > changes in the French law, and that the law was enacted in a hurry. Laws > enacted in a hurry are almost invariably bad laws.
Bob, It does strike me that it's an anti-paparazzi law, and I'm not entirely sympathetic to the photographers. Unfortunately there will be "innocent victims"--legitimate news photographers. It's prima facie absurd to say (as some have done in this thread) that the paparazzi had nothing to do with Di's death. Her chauffeur was actively fleeing them at the time of the accident; 10 paparazzi, all French, were implicated, 7 taken into custody, at least one of them beat up at the scene of the accident by bystanders; all were eventually exonerated in the official investigation when the official cause of the accident was determined to be drunk driving. The public outcry against photographers at the time (which I monitored fairly carefully for the magazine I edited) was immense, and intense, too--even in the United States, there were numerous incidents of photographers, amateur and professional, being threatened with physical violence while photographing in public in the wake of Di's death. It looks to me as if the new law is specifically intended mainly to give ammunition to celebrities when their privacy is violated by paparazzi. I think it's hardly likely that a French court would levy fines whenever anyone appeared in photograph in print by accident; but it certainly makes it clear that if a famous person is pictured against their will, unauthorized publication of the picture will get the publication fined. It seems designed to dampen the market for unauthorized celebrity photographs. That's my take, anyway. I'm glad that's not the way it is in the United States, but if that's the way the French want to do things, I don't think I'm in a position to criticize. --Mike Along these lines, it's been interesting to hear George Harrison's views in the past few days about privacy, public idolatry, and "personal space." - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
