Well, this is rich:The lawyer for the call girl linked to the downfall of Gov. Eliot Spitzer lashed out at the media on Friday for thrusting the 22-year-old woman into the "public glare" without her consent and publishing revealing photos.(Via Memeorandum.) Oh, that dreadful "public glare"! Oh, the shame of those "revealing photos"!
Since her identity was disclosed, newspapers and Web sites have splashed photos of Ashley Alexandra Dupre in suggestive poses on front and inside pages. Dupre was known as "Kristen" in court documents accusing Spitzer of paying thousands for prostitutes' services.
Her attorney, Don D. Buchwald, said she did not consent to the use of her photos in this manner, and the usage may be a violation of federal copyright laws.
Hey, Buchwald: Your client is a whore. She was peddling that stuff to the highest bidder. And since prostitution is a crime, Ashley Alexandra Dupre's "revealing" photos -- to the extent that they were used to advertise her illegal services -- were arguably instrumental to her criminal conduct.
Jammie Wearing Fool shares my amusement:
She's an attention-seeking whore, yet somehow now has a problem everyone is seeing her photos?Buchwald, you don't have a leg to stand on, and you know it. If you ever dared to bring any legal action on this pathetic claim, you'd be laughed out of court. Why don't you concentrate on trying to keep your whore client out of prison, which is what I presume you're getting paid to do?
Better yet, Buchwald, why don't you get creative? Contact MTV and try to sell them on a new reality series, "High-Priced Whore." If you work the deal right, Ms. Dupre could soon be an even more infamous whore than she already is.
UPDATE: While looking for more photos, I came across this story in the Boston Globe, which might be called "A Whore's Tale":
She left a broken home on the Jersey Shore at 17 and came to New York City to work the nightclubs as a rhythm-and-blues singer. . . .(Not a monster, just a whore, Ashley.)
In a series of telephone interviews on Tuesday night, she said she had slept very little over the past week due to the stress from the case. "I just don't want to be thought of as a monster," the woman said.
Born Ashley Youmans but now known as Ashley Alexandra Dupre, she spoke softly and with good humor as she added: "This has been a very difficult time. It is complicated." . . .(I'm sure all the guys who went to high school in New Jersey with Ashley Youmans are now laughing themselves silly: "Spitzer paid $4,000 for that? Man, I used to get it for free -- and it wasn't that good.")
Add your own punchlines, folks.She left "a broken family" at age 17, having been abused, according to the MySpace page, and has used drugs, "been broke and homeless." . . .
Carolyn Capalbo, 46, Dupre's mother, said that she attended Wall High School in Belmar until her sophomore year, when she moved to North Carolina. "She was a young kid with typical teenage rebellion issues, but we are extremely close now," Capalbo said in a telephone interview yesterday. . . .
Capalbo said that she was "shell-shocked" when her daughter called mid-last week and told her she had been working as an escort and was now in trouble with the law. She said she was not sure Dupre realized who Spitzer was when he was her client.
"She is a very bright girl who can handle someone like the governor," Capalbo said in a telephone interview yesterday. "But she also is a 22-year-old, not a 32-year-old or a 42-year-old, and she obviously got involved in something much larger than her."
UPDATE 12:50 p.m.: My friend James Joyner at Outside the Beltway appears to take seriously the legalistic arguments that newspapers that published MySpace photos of Ashley/"Kristen" are guilty of copyright infringement. Nonsense.
Look, I've got a 3 p.m. appointment 100 miles from here, so I'll have to make this quick:
Ashley/"Kristen" is a criminal, who is in a world of legal jeopardy. She has engaged in prostitution as part of what prosecutors say is an interstate (and perhaps international) prostitution ring. She is implicated in potential federal money-laundering charges, as well as possible violation of the Mann Act. As far as we know, Ashley/"Kristen" used her MySpace photos to advertise her call-girl services.
Furthermore, by the highly-publicized nature of her crimes -- which destroyed the career of the governor of New York -- Ashley/"Kristen" has arguably become a public figure. Thus, all photos of Ashley/"Kristen" can be considered fair game at this point.
Remember those pictures of the Columbine killers brandishing their weapons? Do you think anyone got permission or paid a royalty to publish those photos? I don't think so.
The same principle applies with photos of Ashley/"Kristen." Who would be the plaintiffs in a copyright suit? The whore herself? Authorities are going to let her out of jail so she can testify in freaking copyright case? And what kind of judge or jury would award damages in such a case?
So, yeah, Buchwald can sue the NY Post and cause them to have to spend money hiring lawyers to handle the case, but it would just be a nuisance action, and would never result in damages?
Whatever the fine points of the law in this case, the practical reality is that the newspapers that published the photo are in the clear -- and they know it, which is why they didn't hesitate to publish them.
I think you're right on the practicalities. I published three of the photos on OTB and publish all manner of copyrighted photos on a regular basis, just making sure to give proper credit. With rare exceptions, I'm using them to illustrate news analysis or to engage in commentary and feel they're fair use.
ReplyDeleteI'm just saying that, in the current state of copyright law, I'm probably not in the clear. The remedy, generally, is the filing of a DMCA notice and either a counterclaim or the prompt removal of the images. I've received a handful of those and only counterclaimed once and prevailed.