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Is there also an exception for giant tools?
Back in 2003, Jay Leno showed Claire Walter’s photograph, sent in by her employer, and mocked the apparently unflattering picture during his Headlines segment of “The Tonight Show.” Ms. Walter was not pleased with this, so she took up the most favorite of American past-times and filed a lawsuit against NBC, Leno, “The Tonight Show” and her former employer. Her lawsuit claimed that these defendants had violated her privacy rights under New York’s civil rights law (which bans the commercial use of a living person’s name or picture without their consent) and had intentionally inflicted emotional distress.
The trial court initially dismissed the intentional infliction of emotional distress claim as to the NBC defendants, and earlier this month an appellate court dismissed that claim as to her former employer. The appellate court also dismissed the privacy right claims against the NBC defendants (although the privacy claim against her ex-employer remains because the photograph included the company’s name and phone number and the court was unconvinced that the company did not intend it to be used as an advertisement). In dismissing the privacy rights claim against the NBC defendants, the court noted that the New York law bans “nonconsensual commercial appropriation” but that there is an exception for the reporting of newsworthy events. The court then ruled that comedy and satire fall within this exception to the privacy rights, even if the comedy in question does not relate to “legitimate” news.
Now I don’t question the logic of New York Appellate Division, 4th Department in interpreting the New York law. I do question an underlying fallacy, however, which is that anything Leno does should qualify as comedy and satire.
