Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 15.pdf/543

 496

and obnoxious. All these feelings died with her. After her death the execution of an ap propriate statue could not violate her right of privacy nor would that of any living rela tive. These declared legal propositions are the premises upon which will be built the future dominion of the right of privacy. What this realm may be, and how the domain of pub licity, though bounding it on all quarters, will be compelled to make room for it and keep on the outside of it and let it alone, may be presaged by an inferential consideration of the right as already construed. If a private individual has a right to be pro tected in the reproduction of his likeness in any form, then all cameras must respect this right. Because a kodak will reproduce the image of what it is pointed at when the but ton is pressed, is no sufficient reason or ex cuse for pointing it at everything and every body. The publicity of photography must be compelled to take notice of every condi tion the right of privacy labels "hands off." Everything and everybody of a public na ture may be said to be legitimate game for the lens. Where, however, the subject is a private character, should it not be under stood that the kodak is forbidden unless it is with permission given? Should not the rule as to one's own like ness also apply to his possessions which are peculiarly private and personal? If a picture has been painted, or the model of invention perfected, or a rare object purchased, the reproduction of the likeness of which might be disagreeable and mean a loss to the owner, should not the reproduction by cam era or in any other way, of the likeness of ali such personal possessions be prohibited until the owner has seen fit to dedicate them to the public? If there is a distinction between an individ ual of a private character and one of a pub lic character, ought there not to be a dis tinction in the individual of public character

between such things making up his public and such his private personality. So much of his life as he has dedicated to the public be longs to the domain of publicity. Are there not, however, private chapters in every such life, which have never been dedicated to the public, which ought to belong to the individ ual of public character as a right of privacy? Because the public is entitled to his portrait and every incident in his public life, or as much of his private life as he has given to the puBlic, is no reason why the public should have a picture of an embrace between hus band and wife, given when they have shut the door upon the world, or of a tear-stained face at the bedside of a sick child. Surely a public character ought to have the right to go home from the show and be protected from all public molestation by portraiture as he rides hobby horse with his son, plays bear with his children on his knees or rolls over the floor with the baby. It has been legally intimated that a parent has no right to prohibit the reproduction of the likeness of an infant daughter. The right of privacy belongs to the daughter and not to the parent, being a purely personal right. If this is good legal common sense, may it not be a question of how much of the life of a public character as surrounds his wife and children is the proper subject of publicity? Though the wife and husband may be a partner in the public character of the other, may not each, however, be said to have a right of privacy of their own, as well as the children which should not be invaded? Inother words, has the public the right to snap kodaks at the wife and children of a Presi dent the moment they appear on the street and reproduce these portraitures? Without permission, ought not the right of privacy protect them from public molestation in this form? It would seem as though the right of pri vacy, so far as legally interpreted, has been confined to reproductions by photographer.