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Fake porn of celebrities has been prevalent on the Internet for a long time. I don't have precise statistics, but I think it might predate the web. For the most

Fake porn of celebrities has been prevalent on the Internet for a long time. I don't have precise statistics, but I think it might predate the web. For the most part it hasn't been particularly controversial. Now that advances in technology have significantly improved the quality, everybody suddenly has a problem with it. Let's back this up a few steps. You're an actor, you appear on television. By being filmed and accepting the pay offered to you, you're agreeing to allow these images of you be disseminated to the general public, for their enjoyment. But what if somebody finds you attractive, and looks at your picture whilst... you know. Can you sue? No, they're well within their rights to do so. What if they cut your face out and place it over a Playboy centerfold? Same deal. Several technogical innovations later, here we are. Fundamentally, nothing has changed. Fundamentally, people are still 100% within their rights to combine images legally obtained in this way. And post them online. This may not be what the Internet was created for, but this was always what it was used for.

llukas 9y ago
> And post them online. Mass redistribution of somebody image is not a "right".
- superkuh 9y ago
  Luckily in the free world we don't need "rights" in order to do things. In third world countries people are often put in prison for photoshoping their leaders. Hopefully this trend towards that kind of authoritarianism doesn't continue in the west.
  - llukas 9y ago
    Did you really just mix for profit deepfake porn with fight for political freedom?
    - Spivak 9y ago
      Freedom shouldn't discriminate based on fields of endeavor.
      - toomuchtodo 9y ago
        My rights begin where someone else's rights end. Freedom is not "free to do whatever you want".
    - ric2b 9y ago
      for profit? who said anything about this being for profit? I don't think it is
- Steel_Phoenix 9y ago
  What do you think freedom of the press refers to? It's the printing press. Literally designed for the sole purpose of mass redistribution.
untog 9y ago
I'm pretty sure celebrities have also been able to request the removal of fake porn featuring themselves, and online communities have been able to ban the posting of it. So we're not really in any particularly new territory here.
codingdave 9y ago
> people are still 100% within their rights to combine images legally obtained in this way. And post them online. Are they? If you distribute movies and media to the public, you normally are breaking laws. (Hence the infamous FBI warning on movies for a couple decades now.) Likewise, you cannot just use people's likeness in marketing and other public uses without their permission. So I'm not at all sure that just because you have an image, you have the rights to create and distribute derivative works from them.
- falcolas 9y ago
  > Likewise, you cannot just use people's likeness in marketing and other public uses without their permission. Tell that to Prince and Peter Cushing. ;)
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - numismatex 9y ago
    You can use most images without permission if it's not for profit, or for editorial purposes and many news-use and creative works fall into these categories. They can sue for defamation, but yeah...
- yakitori 9y ago
  > Are they? Yes. > If you distribute movies and media to the public, you normally are breaking laws. That's not what we are talking about. You can transform any public image for parody, criticism, etc. Porn is considered speech so anyone can make pornographic parodies/etc. This is especially true if fans are doing so for fun and not for profit. Of course reddit has a right to ban it from their platform, but you as a fan can transform any public image and criticize, parody, etc it.
  - gamblor956 9y ago
    That's not what we are talking about. You can transform any public image for parody, criticism, etc. Porn is considered speech so anyone can make pornographic parodies/etc. This is true. It's not censorable free speech, meaning the government can't prohibit it ahead of time. But speech can be subject to tort claims despite surviving the First Amendment. A deepfake victim can sue for damages in civil courts, and there's a 99.99999% chance they'd win massive damages every time. This is especially true if fans are doing so for fun and not for profit Profit motive may affect the amount of damages, but it doesn't effect whether or not the victim can sue and win in a court of law. Even in the US, you'd be paying out significant damages to someone for damage to reputation or use of likeness.
NegativeK 9y ago
Do you honestly think that using someone else's copywritten material to transform yet another person's likeness into something that very few people would consent to (when you almost certainly didn't try to get consent) is a fair use right, legally or socially?
- falcolas 9y ago
  Well, it is definitely transformative. In fact, nothing of the original work really survives the transformation. You can't merely copyright your likeness. As for socially, consider this: They have used the likeness of Bruce Lee, Carrie Fischer, Prince, and Peter Cushing in commercial works, undoubtedly without prior consent. We also have "public" nude photos taken and distributed of celebrities on a regular basis (paparazzi). This appears to be quite socially acceptable, so I'll run with the idea that "socially acceptable" is pretty fluid when it comes to celebrities likenesses.
  - danso 9y ago
    > You can't merely copyright your likeness. Which country are we talking about? Because that is not the case in the U.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights#United_Stat... > They have used the likeness of Bruce Lee, Carrie Fischer, Prince, and Peter Cushing in commercial works, undoubtedly without prior consent. Who is "they"? Who has been using Fischer's and Cushing's likenesses without contractual agreements? > We also have "public" nude photos taken and distributed of celebrities on a regular basis (paparazzi) Public photography has legal protections. Doesn't mean that if you took a photo of Obama at the gym you can use the photo in an ad campaign that suggests his approval of commercial usage.
  - gamblor956 9y ago
    They have used the likeness of Bruce Lee, Carrie Fischer, Prince, and Peter Cushing in commercial works, undoubtedly without prior consent. They licensed their likenesses from their estate, or used licensed footage (i.e., film clips of Bruce Lee). We also have "public" nude photos taken and distributed of celebrities on a regular basis (paparazzi). Photos taken in public are not subject to the same tort concerns as private photos, or faked photos purporting to be of a celebrity.
typomatic 9y ago
Usually people use the slippery slope to avoid things, not encourage a descent into depravity, but to each their own. In any case, you shouldn't pretend as if this is morally okay just because you can focus in on each individual step and find a way to justify it. There are a lot of crimes that clearly fall into this bucket: stalking, for example. Any one interaction may be innocent, but it's the sum total of actions that completes the picture of abuse. If you endorse distributing fake naked pictures of celebrities, you are a bad person, no matter your line of reasoning.
- irrational 9y ago
  If you endorse distributing naked pictures, you are a bad person, no matter your line of reasoning. FTFY
  - sctb 9y ago
    Please stop posting unsubstantively. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- prepend 9y ago
  This is an interesting final opinion. Can you explain your reasoning? I’d like to understand more about why you dislike this? This idea of altering images has always confused me. When I was a kid, I got a scanner and a printer. The first thing I did was take a picture of a Battletech Griffin 55 ton battlemech (a giant war robot) and replaced the robot head with that of my mom, titling it “Grifmom.” I thought it was awesome and she burst into tears and beat me terribly. I never understood why. And this didn’t have any nudity or offensive material, just a normal face on a robot body. Perhaps this is related to your aversion?
  - typomatic 9y ago
    I dislike this because I have respect for human beings instead of applying moral rules like a robot.
rhcom2 9y ago
I'm sure if you would ask the people in those fakes they had a problem with it from the beginning. "It has always been a thing" isn't an argument for something.
- Tech-Noir 9y ago
  It's an argument for not overreacting about it.
- flycaliguy 9y ago
  Since it was only famous people, who have presumably already tackled the downside of public life, it may have been easily dismissed by the victims.
jstarfish 9y ago
While I agree with you, it's much more invasive than a superimposed face on a still image. A photograph of something is open to interpretation or dispute, but a video is a series of such stills, each one slightly different, each of which adds to the provenance of the whole.
- jobigoud 9y ago
  Banning it doesn't make the underlying tech go away. You seem to imply a video is inherently more trustworthy, this is no longer the case, we need to acknowledge it.
gamblor956 9y ago
What if they cut your face out and place it over a Playboy centerfold? Same deal. Several technogical innovations later, here we are. Fundamentally, nothing has changed. You have two images, one physically overlaying the other...it's not even remotely the same thing as a single integrated image, technically or legally. Integrating the (edit) images (end edit) changes everything. Fundamentally, people are still 100% within their rights to combine images legally obtained in this way. And post them online. Completely. False. You may have the right to combine images for your own personal use (in the US, ignoring discussions of CP), but you absolutely do not have the right to distribute those images, and the associated tort actions both pre-date and have survived the First Amendment.
YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
>> But what if somebody finds you attractive, and looks at your picture whilst... you know. Can you sue? No, they're well within their rights to do so. What if they cut your face out and place it over a Playboy centerfold? Same deal. Several technogical innovations later, here we are. Fundamentally, nothing has changed. How did we go from "somone masturbates over a collage of your face over a picture on a magazine" (presumably, in the privacy of their own home) to "someone posts fake porn of you on the internet for all to see"? That's not a matter of "technological innovations". It's a matter of a gross violation of your dignity, an insult to your personality performed in public and with the express intention to humiliate you in front of the widest audience possible.

llukas 9y ago

> And post them online. Mass redistribution of somebody image is not a "right".

superkuh 9y ago
Luckily in the free world we don't need "rights" in order to do things. In third world countries people are often put in prison for photoshoping their leaders. Hopefully this trend towards that kind of authoritarianism doesn't continue in the west.
- llukas 9y ago
  Did you really just mix for profit deepfake porn with fight for political freedom?
  - Spivak 9y ago
    Freedom shouldn't discriminate based on fields of endeavor.
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      My rights begin where someone else's rights end. Freedom is not "free to do whatever you want".
  - ric2b 9y ago
    for profit? who said anything about this being for profit? I don't think it is
Steel_Phoenix 9y ago
What do you think freedom of the press refers to? It's the printing press. Literally designed for the sole purpose of mass redistribution.

untog 9y ago

I'm pretty sure celebrities have also been able to request the removal of fake porn featuring themselves, and online communities have been able to ban the posting of it. So we're not really in any particularly new territory here.

codingdave 9y ago

> people are still 100% within their rights to combine images legally obtained in this way. And post them online. Are they? If you distribute movies and media to the public, you normally are breaking laws. (Hence the infamous FBI warning on movies for a couple decades now.) Likewise, you cannot just use people's likeness in marketing and other public uses without their permission. So I'm not at all sure that just because you have an image, you have the rights to create and distribute derivative works from them.

falcolas 9y ago
> Likewise, you cannot just use people's likeness in marketing and other public uses without their permission. Tell that to Prince and Peter Cushing. ;)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- numismatex 9y ago
  You can use most images without permission if it's not for profit, or for editorial purposes and many news-use and creative works fall into these categories. They can sue for defamation, but yeah...
yakitori 9y ago
> Are they? Yes. > If you distribute movies and media to the public, you normally are breaking laws. That's not what we are talking about. You can transform any public image for parody, criticism, etc. Porn is considered speech so anyone can make pornographic parodies/etc. This is especially true if fans are doing so for fun and not for profit. Of course reddit has a right to ban it from their platform, but you as a fan can transform any public image and criticize, parody, etc it.
- gamblor956 9y ago
  That's not what we are talking about. You can transform any public image for parody, criticism, etc. Porn is considered speech so anyone can make pornographic parodies/etc. This is true. It's not censorable free speech, meaning the government can't prohibit it ahead of time. But speech can be subject to tort claims despite surviving the First Amendment. A deepfake victim can sue for damages in civil courts, and there's a 99.99999% chance they'd win massive damages every time. This is especially true if fans are doing so for fun and not for profit Profit motive may affect the amount of damages, but it doesn't effect whether or not the victim can sue and win in a court of law. Even in the US, you'd be paying out significant damages to someone for damage to reputation or use of likeness.

NegativeK 9y ago

Do you honestly think that using someone else's copywritten material to transform yet another person's likeness into something that very few people would consent to (when you almost certainly didn't try to get consent) is a fair use right, legally or socially?

falcolas 9y ago
Well, it is definitely transformative. In fact, nothing of the original work really survives the transformation. You can't merely copyright your likeness. As for socially, consider this: They have used the likeness of Bruce Lee, Carrie Fischer, Prince, and Peter Cushing in commercial works, undoubtedly without prior consent. We also have "public" nude photos taken and distributed of celebrities on a regular basis (paparazzi). This appears to be quite socially acceptable, so I'll run with the idea that "socially acceptable" is pretty fluid when it comes to celebrities likenesses.
- danso 9y ago
  > You can't merely copyright your likeness. Which country are we talking about? Because that is not the case in the U.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights#United_Stat... > They have used the likeness of Bruce Lee, Carrie Fischer, Prince, and Peter Cushing in commercial works, undoubtedly without prior consent. Who is "they"? Who has been using Fischer's and Cushing's likenesses without contractual agreements? > We also have "public" nude photos taken and distributed of celebrities on a regular basis (paparazzi) Public photography has legal protections. Doesn't mean that if you took a photo of Obama at the gym you can use the photo in an ad campaign that suggests his approval of commercial usage.
- gamblor956 9y ago
  They have used the likeness of Bruce Lee, Carrie Fischer, Prince, and Peter Cushing in commercial works, undoubtedly without prior consent. They licensed their likenesses from their estate, or used licensed footage (i.e., film clips of Bruce Lee). We also have "public" nude photos taken and distributed of celebrities on a regular basis (paparazzi). Photos taken in public are not subject to the same tort concerns as private photos, or faked photos purporting to be of a celebrity.

typomatic 9y ago

Usually people use the slippery slope to avoid things, not encourage a descent into depravity, but to each their own. In any case, you shouldn't pretend as if this is morally okay just because you can focus in on each individual step and find a way to justify it. There are a lot of crimes that clearly fall into this bucket: stalking, for example. Any one interaction may be innocent, but it's the sum total of actions that completes the picture of abuse. If you endorse distributing fake naked pictures of celebrities, you are a bad person, no matter your line of reasoning.

irrational 9y ago
If you endorse distributing naked pictures, you are a bad person, no matter your line of reasoning. FTFY
- sctb 9y ago
  Please stop posting unsubstantively. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
prepend 9y ago
This is an interesting final opinion. Can you explain your reasoning? I’d like to understand more about why you dislike this? This idea of altering images has always confused me. When I was a kid, I got a scanner and a printer. The first thing I did was take a picture of a Battletech Griffin 55 ton battlemech (a giant war robot) and replaced the robot head with that of my mom, titling it “Grifmom.” I thought it was awesome and she burst into tears and beat me terribly. I never understood why. And this didn’t have any nudity or offensive material, just a normal face on a robot body. Perhaps this is related to your aversion?
- typomatic 9y ago
  I dislike this because I have respect for human beings instead of applying moral rules like a robot.

rhcom2 9y ago

I'm sure if you would ask the people in those fakes they had a problem with it from the beginning. "It has always been a thing" isn't an argument for something.

Tech-Noir 9y ago
It's an argument for not overreacting about it.
flycaliguy 9y ago
Since it was only famous people, who have presumably already tackled the downside of public life, it may have been easily dismissed by the victims.

jstarfish 9y ago

While I agree with you, it's much more invasive than a superimposed face on a still image. A photograph of something is open to interpretation or dispute, but a video is a series of such stills, each one slightly different, each of which adds to the provenance of the whole.

jobigoud 9y ago
Banning it doesn't make the underlying tech go away. You seem to imply a video is inherently more trustworthy, this is no longer the case, we need to acknowledge it.

gamblor956 9y ago

What if they cut your face out and place it over a Playboy centerfold? Same deal. Several technogical innovations later, here we are. Fundamentally, nothing has changed. You have two images, one physically overlaying the other...it's not even remotely the same thing as a single integrated image, technically or legally. Integrating the (edit) images (end edit) changes everything. Fundamentally, people are still 100% within their rights to combine images legally obtained in this way. And post them online. Completely. False. You may have the right to combine images for your own personal use (in the US, ignoring discussions of CP), but you absolutely do not have the right to distribute those images, and the associated tort actions both pre-date and have survived the First Amendment.

YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago

>> But what if somebody finds you attractive, and looks at your picture whilst... you know. Can you sue? No, they're well within their rights to do so. What if they cut your face out and place it over a Playboy centerfold? Same deal. Several technogical innovations later, here we are. Fundamentally, nothing has changed. How did we go from "somone masturbates over a collage of your face over a picture on a magazine" (presumably, in the privacy of their own home) to "someone posts fake porn of you on the internet for all to see"? That's not a matter of "technological innovations". It's a matter of a gross violation of your dignity, an insult to your personality performed in public and with the express intention to humiliate you in front of the widest audience possible.