Last week, The Atlantic Monthly’s Amanda Levendowski wrote about revenge porn and copyright law. There are laws that can be used by victims, but they prosecute those who submit such material, not the websites that host it, and creating new laws, she cautions, though well-intentioned, could produce overly broad ones such as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Instead, Levendowski points out that victims—without the aid of a lawyer—have the power to compel websites to take down the images because the victim created the photo and thus has a copyright on the image. This installment for Privacy Perspectives looks into these issues and asks whether, instead of more laws, the copyright concept could be one possible avenue to explore further to help empower users, without stifling free speech.
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