Is it legal to use pictures of people takes from Facebook?

Question

Ok, so this is a tricky one here and any help would be greatly appreciated, also the speedier the answer the better as I have to move quickly on this one. So a woman came to speak at my school yesterday about privacy online, to make some points about Facebook she created a fake Facebook account that was not under her own name, took embarrassing images of people from the school, and used them in her presentation. However the pictures were either blurred or the face was blocked out, however due to the audience (a school in which these people belong), some people were still able to tell who the pictures were of. I want to know if what she did was legal, and on a significantly lesser note, what the consequences could be were she ever taken to court for doing that. Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

Using a published photograph without the permission of the copyright holder (usually the person who took it) is a breach of copyright under "most" circumstances.

But.... there is a doctrine called "Fair use" which allows people to use copyright material in commentary, research, and othe rnon-commercial uses. A lecturer using the images to illustrate a lecture would meet the fair use doctrine.

The remedy for an illegal breach of copyright is the greater of a) the amount of profit the breacher makes from the copyright breach or b) the amount of profit the copyright holder loses because of the breach.

Obviously, in your case, both of those amounts are zero, so there's "no harm, no foul".

Richard

Answer 2

I do not think it is necessarily illegal but more so it is unethical.