[rayiner]

You're wanting to have your cake and eat it too. People say: crimes should not be treated differently just because you use a computer to do them. I agree! If I was running a bar where I solicited jilted ex-boyfriends to send in naked pictures of women, and then plastered them all over the wall and purposefully profited from the business they brought in, then you can bet I would be charged with a crime! Acting in concert with someone else to violate someone's rights makes you liable in meat space, and the same should be true in digital space.

[cracell]

With your bar example what crime could you charge the bar owner with? It's a very sleazy thing to do but I don't know of any laws in the United States that it violates. If the ex-boyfriends took the photos than they own copyright to them and as far as I know the subject has no rights to them.

[rayiner]

All states have privacy-related torts that could be leveled directly at the bar owner, as the publisher of the pictures.

See: http://blog.internetcases.com/2012/05/21/social-media-legal-...

Specifically: http://blog.internetcases.com/2009/10/07/group-sex-photos-ca...

Disclaimer: this is not a legal opinion.

[discountgenius]

> ...then you can bet I would be charged with a crime!

What crime? I can't think of one that would apply.

> Acting in concert with someone else to violate someone's rights makes you liable...

This might be where our opinions diverge. To what rights do you refer? I think your right to privacy may be waived when you consent to have the pictures taken and sent to a third party without a written contract.

[rayiner]

Your right to privacy is not waived just by disclosure. If I tell my girlfriend I have VD, and she e-mails my whole office that fact after we break up, that is an invasion of privacy and is not waived because I told her in private. If I announce I have VD at the office party and then she sends the e-mail, that's different.

This is common sense stuff.

[discountgenius]

I totally agree that that is a moral invasion of privacy. I'm just not convinced it's a legal one.

[rayiner]

It is a legal one. See my other post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092699