Are they? If you distribute movies and media to the public, you normally are breaking laws. (Hence the infamous FBI warning on movies for a couple decades now.) Likewise, you cannot just use people's likeness in marketing and other public uses without their permission. So I'm not at all sure that just because you have an image, you have the rights to create and distribute derivative works from them.
Tell that to Prince and Peter Cushing. ;)
Yes.
> If you distribute movies and media to the public, you normally are breaking laws.
That's not what we are talking about. You can transform any public image for parody, criticism, etc. Porn is considered speech so anyone can make pornographic parodies/etc. This is especially true if fans are doing so for fun and not for profit.
Of course reddit has a right to ban it from their platform, but you as a fan can transform any public image and criticize, parody, etc it.
Maybe, maybe not. Transforming generally creates a derivative work. On its face that requires permission from the owner of the copyright of the work, but there may be exception that allows it in particular cases. In the case of parody in particular, it MAY be covered by fair use.
A lot of people on the net think that parody is automatically fair use, usually from misunderstanding the Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569 (1994) case.
Briefly, in the case, the district court said that parody was fair use. The appeals court said because it was commercial parody it presumptively could not be fair use.
The Supreme Court said they were both wrong, and it might be parody and sent the case back down to the lower courts.
A lot of people just looked at as the Supreme Court reversing the appellate court's reversing of the district court's ruling that parody was fair use, and took it as therefore the Supreme Court saying parody was fair use. (I don't blame people for misunderstanding--the press is generally terrible at reporting Supreme Court decisions. They often fail to interpret Supreme Court rulings in the context of the lower court decisions that led to the case).
This is true. It's not censorable free speech, meaning the government can't prohibit it ahead of time. But speech can be subject to tort claims despite surviving the First Amendment. A deepfake victim can sue for damages in civil courts, and there's a 99.99999% chance they'd win massive damages every time.
This is especially true if fans are doing so for fun and not for profit
Profit motive may affect the amount of damages, but it doesn't effect whether or not the victim can sue and win in a court of law. Even in the US, you'd be paying out significant damages to someone for damage to reputation or use of likeness.
In any case, you shouldn't pretend as if this is morally okay just because you can focus in on each individual step and find a way to justify it. There are a lot of crimes that clearly fall into this bucket: stalking, for example. Any one interaction may be innocent, but it's the sum total of actions that completes the picture of abuse.
If you endorse distributing fake naked pictures of celebrities, you are a bad person, no matter your line of reasoning.
This idea of altering images has always confused me. When I was a kid, I got a scanner and a printer. The first thing I did was take a picture of a Battletech Griffin 55 ton battlemech (a giant war robot) and replaced the robot head with that of my mom, titling it “Grifmom.” I thought it was awesome and she burst into tears and beat me terribly. I never understood why. And this didn’t have any nudity or offensive material, just a normal face on a robot body.
Perhaps this is related to your aversion?
Do you imagine others naked? Is that disrespectful?
It’s really interesting hearing about other people’s mora systems.
You can't merely copyright your likeness.
As for socially, consider this: They have used the likeness of Bruce Lee, Carrie Fischer, Prince, and Peter Cushing in commercial works, undoubtedly without prior consent. We also have "public" nude photos taken and distributed of celebrities on a regular basis (paparazzi). This appears to be quite socially acceptable, so I'll run with the idea that "socially acceptable" is pretty fluid when it comes to celebrities likenesses.
Which country are we talking about? Because that is not the case in the U.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights#United_Stat...
> They have used the likeness of Bruce Lee, Carrie Fischer, Prince, and Peter Cushing in commercial works, undoubtedly without prior consent.
Who is "they"? Who has been using Fischer's and Cushing's likenesses without contractual agreements?
> We also have "public" nude photos taken and distributed of celebrities on a regular basis (paparazzi)
Public photography has legal protections. Doesn't mean that if you took a photo of Obama at the gym you can use the photo in an ad campaign that suggests his approval of commercial usage.
They licensed their likenesses from their estate, or used licensed footage (i.e., film clips of Bruce Lee).
We also have "public" nude photos taken and distributed of celebrities on a regular basis (paparazzi).
Photos taken in public are not subject to the same tort concerns as private photos, or faked photos purporting to be of a celebrity.
Mass redistribution of somebody image is not a "right".
A photograph of something is open to interpretation or dispute, but a video is a series of such stills, each one slightly different, each of which adds to the provenance of the whole.
You have two images, one physically overlaying the other...it's not even remotely the same thing as a single integrated image, technically or legally. Integrating the (edit) images (end edit) changes everything.
Fundamentally, people are still 100% within their rights to combine images legally obtained in this way. And post them online.
Completely. False. You may have the right to combine images for your own personal use (in the US, ignoring discussions of CP), but you absolutely do not have the right to distribute those images, and the associated tort actions both pre-date and have survived the First Amendment.
Let's back this up a few steps. You're an actor, you appear on television. By being filmed and accepting the pay offered to you, you're agreeing to allow these images of you be disseminated to the general public, for their enjoyment. But what if somebody finds you attractive, and looks at your picture whilst... you know. Can you sue? No, they're well within their rights to do so. What if they cut your face out and place it over a Playboy centerfold? Same deal. Several technogical innovations later, here we are. Fundamentally, nothing has changed. Fundamentally, people are still 100% within their rights to combine images legally obtained in this way. And post them online. This may not be what the Internet was created for, but this was always what it was used for.