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Re:Mark Bao tracks down his stolen laptop and has the last l... by fbailey on Wednesday March 23, 2011 @01:12PM (#2360269)
difficult question the guy is practically storing his data on Mark`s harddisk- I'm not actually sure that it would be illegal here in Germany to publish the stuff.
Re:Mark Bao tracks down his stolen laptop and has the last l... by ugh on Wednesday March 23, 2011 @01:22PM (#2360318)
That’s irrelevant. The thief might well not be able to force the victim to delete all the things he stored on the victim’s drive but publishing it is something completely different.

Just as an example, if you take a photo of me with your camera and I explicitly tell you to not publish the photo you are not allowed to [0], even if the photo is stored on your own drive. I can’t force you to delete the photo, you are free to keep it and show it to your friends but you are definitely not allowed to publish it.

[0] There are certain narrow exceptions in the respective German law but they don’t apply in this case.

Re:Mark Bao tracks down his stolen laptop and has the last l... by yellowbkpk on Wednesday March 23, 2011 @01:41PM (#2360413)
You're telling me that if you take my camera out of my back pocket while I'm not looking, take a picture of yourself with it, then give it back to me, I am not allowed to publish that picture? Under what law would you sue? In the US you may have a claim under a libel law or similar, but it would be hard to convince a jury or judge that I was libeling you with a picture you took with stolen property.
Re:Mark Bao tracks down his stolen laptop and has the last l... by ugh on Wednesday March 23, 2011 @01:54PM (#2360463)
It would be illegal, yes. You are allowed to keep the photo but not to publish it.

Kunsturheberrechtsgesetzes (KunstUhrG) §22, first sentence: „Bildnisse dürfen nur mit Einwilligung des Abgebildeten verbreitet oder öffentlich zur Schau gestellt werden.“ (Rough translation: “Images can only be published with consent of the depicted.”)

Here’s the whole text (German): http://dejure.org/gesetze/KunstUrhG/22.html

§23 lists all the exceptions:

1. Photos with some sort of historic meaning.

2. Whenever the depicted persons are merely incidental to the actual subject.

3. Photos of gatherings, demonstrations and similar such events.

4. Basically, if it’s art.

Re:Mark Bao tracks down his stolen laptop and has the last l... by bcrawford on Wednesday March 23, 2011 @05:16PM (#2361506)
The guy in the video is dancing. Dancing is art.

Settled.

Re:Mark Bao tracks down his stolen laptop and has the last l... by ErrantX on Wednesday March 23, 2011 @02:36PM (#2360658)
In the US this is covered under the laws r.e. Personal release rights. So, yeh, you could be sued for doing such a thing. We have a reasonable amount of trouble with this on Wikipedia.
Re:Mark Bao tracks down his stolen laptop and has the last l... by jarek on Wednesday March 23, 2011 @01:49PM (#2360452)
Personality rights. How the image was taken is not relevant to whether or not it can legally be published, especially if you do so for commercial purposes.
Re:Mark Bao tracks down his stolen laptop and has the last l... by chicagobob on Thursday March 24, 2011 @12:54AM (#2362910)
That's ridiculous. Unless we are in a private place (like your own home, a private club, etc..)

For example, if we are in a public park, and I take your picture even against your explicit wishes, as long as I do not make any commercial profit off of it, I am pretty much free to publish it in any way I want (flicr, etc.).

If I want to sell it or profit from it in some way, you certainly have some rights. But, basically, if you are in a public place you have no privacy rights against someone taking a picture of you and publishing it.

Re:Mark Bao tracks down his stolen laptop and has the last l... by mileszs on Wednesday March 23, 2011 @02:05PM (#2360520)
This is not the case in the US. See: Paparazzi pictures of just about any celebrity ever.
Re:Mark Bao tracks down his stolen laptop and has the last l... by ams6110 on Wednesday March 23, 2011 @03:33PM (#2360981)
There is a different standard for celebrities in the US, probably everywhere.
Re:Mark Bao tracks down his stolen laptop and has the last l... by lancewiggs on Wednesday March 23, 2011 @04:51PM (#2361402)
Yes - they fall under "public figure" clauses, and lose a lot of their right to privacy.