Interesting case summarized by Loeb and Loeb. A guy bitten by a killer whale sues someone for broadcasting the tape showing the incident without his consent. The guy claims, amongst other things, infringement of rights of privacy. Interestingly, the court held:
…that the plaintiff did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a video that he had previously licensed for broadcast on national television. The court rejected plaintiff’s argument that once-public facts could become private again and held that, even if the video were considered private, its broadcast
was protected as a newsworthy event.
What I find particularly interesting is the very last part, which seems to suggest that if it’s newsworthy, that somehow trumps the right to privacy. I can imagine that this would likely not be the case here in Canada. One example of where the courts here have done in directly the opposite direction is with respect to the horrific crimes of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, where a wide ban was imposed on materials related to the murders of two young women in order to protect the victims and their families.
I wonder how such a statement (albeit something that could very well be considered obiter) might be applied in other circumstances involving the victims of accidents or crimes, to the detriment of those victims…
