Fake Celeb porn is big business
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YOU may or may not have heard about the online practice of celebrity fakes.
Website after website, one can find images of the most famous in some of the most hardcore pornographic poses. One of those sites, Celebrity Fake, constructs a complete archive of thousands of celebrities organised by name and country of fame. So what s going on
’ here, and why aren t we seeing any
’ law suits?
Miley Cyrus, along with other Disney alumni such as Selena Gomez, are linked to the most popular on the site s home page; but
’ the sheer number is unbelievable. Cyrus is found in 432 of these fake pornographic poses.
No-one is spared and very few are sacred: there are 182 images of Princess Diana, 36 of 50-something film actress Annette Benning, 195 of the tennis star Maria Sharapova.
In listings for Australia, Cate Blanchett is reformed in 124 poses; Julia Gillard, six; Kylie Minogue, 524; Libby Trickett, three, and so on for more than 150 famous women.
The phenomenon is hard to fathom and intriguing to analyse. First of all, one would expect that the circulation of false images of very famous people would generate a torrent of lawsuits.
Famed individuals have spent years constructing their public personas and built fortunes related to their public identities so one might think those same individuals would be outraged sufficiently to generate suits and litigation. For decades, scandal and celebrity magazines have been pursued by celebrities with some success.
Impersonation is generally prosecuted by stars and these images are putting their face on someone else s body and thereby
’ producing a form of impersonation. Recent examples where stars have prosecuted impersonators include Tom Waits successfully suing Opel for using a sound-alike gravelly voice to accompany their television commercials
Lindsay Lohan unsuccessfully suing E-Trade, a financial services company, for a baby called Lindsay in their 2010 Superbowl“” released commercial who was called a milkaholic ”. Robin Williams
“pursuing the prosecution of a man impersonating him for financial gain at events in Texas.
In Australia, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young is advancing with some success in suing magazine for publishing a photoshopped lingerie-clad image of her in a rather bizarre, tasteless and obviously humorous campaign to find the hottest asylum seeker.
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But it s difficult to find any
’ lawsuits against fake celebrity porn sites. One of the key reasons might be the awkward position celebrities inhabit in the public world. In most legal jurisdictions (though not all), it is permissible to parody or satirise a public individual and this allows the use of an identity in this way.
The famous impersonators such as Rich Little The Man of a
–“Thousand Voices were seen as
”– entertainers. The brilliant 2009 parody of George W Bush interviewing himself by Will Ferrell is worth protecting from litigation.
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1) images are generally owned by the photographer or the agency and it is at least partially up to those people to initiate legal action and thus celebrities may not be the starting point for any lawsuit.
2) perhaps it is just embarrassing for celebrities to draw attention to celebrity fake porn after all it is
– their face that has been used and to draw further scrutiny might be seen as further sullying reputations and images. From a legal standpoint, the websites make it very clear that the images are fake and this makes advancing a defamation case more difficult.
Marshall is professor at Deakin University. Source: http://theconversation.com/