Thursday, December 14, 2006

Do Celebs Have Any Right To Privacy?

Oprah might want to pay attention to this one. Singer Loreena McKennit won a judgment in London against an employee who wrote a tell-all book. The employee argued that the info -- which included personal and sexual relationships, her personal feelings about her fiancé who drowned in 1998, health and diet, her emotional vulnerability and detail of a property dispute -- was "banal and anodyne."
Lord Justice Buxton upheld all of the High Court judge's conclusions that various passages in the book were intrusive, insensitive and distressing and came under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act which governs the right to respect for private and family life.

Afterwards, Ms McKennitt said: "If an aspect of career places one directly in the public eye or if extraordinary events make an ordinary person newsworthy for a time, we still should have the basic human dignity of privacy for our home and family life."
McKennit has sold 13 million copies worldwide of her Celtic-flavored music. (Think Enya.) It's unclear to me whether McKennit's relative privacy about her personal life influenced the decision. But even if you're a blabbing worldfamous figure, why should photographers have the right to stalk your every move, take photos of you when you're in a private residence or area and why should employees get to describe every little detail of your life in tell-alls? It's a tricky balance but common sense says people deserve SOME privacy.

5 comments:

priv8pete said...

priv8pete is all for privacy!

Michael in New York said...

Really? So no nannycam when you and the wife want a night out?

priv8pete said...

That's a little too much for me. I have trouble watching all the tv I want to. If I had to watch video of my son when I'm out I wouldn't have time to sleep. Plus, out here in the country we're not as neurotic as you big city types. Speaking of which, how long until that radioactive cloud reaches LIC?

Michael in New York said...

Oh,m about another three hours, but I have my windows closed so I should be fine I think.

MartiniCocoa said...

Celebrities have a right to privacy but
their careers do not. The major problem today is so many celebrities have blurred the line of what is off limits (e.g. Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey's Newlyweds show -- something I could never see Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton doing but just imagine!) that everyone (assistants, photographers, journalists) feels very comfortable with the idea of monetizing every aspect of a celibrities' life.

It's unfair that Ms. McKennitt was betrayed in this way but the capitalist beast must be fed by any means necessary.

Integrity and propriety be damned.