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It’s generally not blackmail to threaten someone with some action that, by itself, is legal. See, for example, the many civil settlements where rich people sto
by matt4077 8y ago
It’s generally not blackmail to threaten someone with some action that, by itself, is legal. See, for example, the many civil settlements where rich people stop the people they raped from going to the police. And I’m unsure what the status is on publishing salacious private photos. Sure, there is a copyright issue. But that’s a civil matter, not criminal.
If it were a crime, it really wouldn’t be much of a threat because they’d be unlikely to follow through, would they?
Edit: there is one federal law where threatening embarrassment is enough, but that requires a demand for money or property, which this is explicitly not.
And because the downvotes are already rolling in: Note that I find this just as abhorrent as you do, and that sexploitation should absolutely be a crime. But the legal situation unfortunately is not at all as clear as the moral one. And the replies below are mostly embarrassing in that nobody even seems to have a clue on the difference between civil and criminal law. Carry on then...
- jlmorton 8y agoThat's not true at all. > Blackmail is the crime of threatening to reveal embarrassing, disgraceful or damaging information about a person to the public, family, spouse or associates unless money is paid to purchase silence. It is a form of extortion. Because the information is usually substantially true, it is not revealing the information that is criminal, but demanding money to withhold it. https://definitions.uslegal.com/b/blackmail/ https://definitions.uslegal.com/b/blackmail/
- phowon 8y agoSo I'm curious - is this considered blackmail if the object isn't money?
- throwaway8879 8y agoYes, very much so.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- WrtCdEvrydy 8y agoGenerally, yes, but you might catch a charge for something else. If they're not asking for money, what they're asking for has to be illegal. Blackmail for Theft: Conspiracy to commit Theft. Blackmail for Fraud: Conspiracy to commit Fraud.
- pertymcpert 8y agoWikipedia says this: Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false, and often damaging, information about a person, to the public, family members, or associates unless certain demands are met. It seems its considered blackmail but in the strictly legal sense I'm not sure. There's probably a law to cover that though, extortion?
- elliekelly 8y agoIt only needs to be “something of value”... often money, but I think most reasonable people can see the potential value of the requested statement from Jeff Bezos. Now if AMI wanted you or I to say those statements I’m not sure how valuable they’d be.
- slavik81 8y agoTo elaborate, "something of value" is the language from the federal law. Under Washington state law, blackmail explicitly includes demands for services. I would think that the demand for a public statement would qualify, however, I'm not a lawyer, and this case is unusual enough that I would not be confident in my personal interpretation of the law.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- elliekelly 8y agoCorrect. And it's important to note that AMI's claim that they could publish the photos at all is dubious at best. Whoever took the photos (presumably Bezo and/or his girlfriend) holds the copyright to the images and fair use only allows them to be reproduced by AMI if they're newsworthy. AMI claims the photos are newsworthy because they speak to his business judgment which is a serious stretch for the photos of Bezos and completely irrelevant with respect to the photos of his girlfriend.
- Aeolun 8y agoI think the operative word in blackmail is threaten. Not so much what you happen to be threatening with.
- sjg007 8y agoRevenge porn elevates the issue regardless.
- jnbiche 8y ago> It’s generally not blackmail to threaten someone with some action that, by itself, is legal. That's entirely untrue. The downvotes are rolling in because your assertion about blackmail is simply wrong. There are a myriad of local, state, and federal laws on blackmail that cover situations like this. Blackmail can involve any threats to coerce using private materials, not just for financial objectives.
- elliekelly 8y agoTheres quite a bit of nuance between the #MeToo settlement agreements and coercion that you seem to be misunderstanding/glossing over: https://lawandcrime.com/legal-analysis/if-amis-jeff-bezos-shakedown-was-criminal-they-can-kiss-their-non-prosecution-agreement-goodbye/ https://lawandcrime.com/legal-analysis/if-amis-jeff-bezos-sh...