By Calvin Magnus
To a wise man, a picture is worth a thousand words. However, to a celebrity photographer a picture could be worth a thousand bucks. In today’s era of techno-wizardry and media-centric society, the art of celebrity photography, legitimate or otherwise, has indeed flourished into a multi-million-dollar industry.

It is commonplace today to spot unflattering photographs of those bigwigs of the entertainment industry gracing the covers of magazines, supplying fodder for the gossip-hungry public. These photographers, more affectionately known as ‘paparazzi’, have robbed of the rich and famous the luxury of privacy.

There is a general sentiment to sympathise with these photographers, who arguably desire to only reap a small fortune from these media royalties. Others see it as the high price of fame. However, from Britney’s high-speed chase to Princess Diana’s tragic death, celebrity photographers have been pushing the boundaries in their endeavour to obtain the ‘money shot’.

As such, it came as no surprise when California Governor Schwarzenegger signed the Anti-Paparazzi Bill last year that makes it easier for lawsuits against media outlets using photos of unlawfully obtained photos to succeed.

The rationale behind the amendment to the US Civil Code is to clip the very source that pays these frenzied photographers and hence, perpetuates the cycle. Prior to the amendment, media outlets could escape liability for publishing the illegitimately obtained photographs by proving that they were not the masterminds who had instructed the photographers to take the photos. They simply bought the photos without any prior arrangements.

American law essentially protects the paparazzi as, buttressed by the Constitution, the defense of the freedom of the press justifies their rather aggressive information gathering techniques. As expounded in Shulman v. Group W Productions, Inc., 18 Cal. 4^th and Taus v. Loftus 40 Cal. 4th 683 (2007)., by virtue of their public prominence, celebrities are awarded minimum reprieve from the ferocity of the press. Daily and mundane activities of these public figures are construed in law as ‘newsworthy’, and thus publicity on such trivia does not necessarily constitute an infringement of privacy.

However, the House of Lords took a differing view on the issue. In Campbell v. MGN Ltd., [2004] 2 A.C. 457 (H.L.) (U.K.), where world-renown supermodel Naomi Campbell sued a publishing company for photographs of her leaving a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, the House of Lords made references to Article 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. As a result, the American presumption of celebrity’s privacy right being subordinate to freedom of press is rebutted.

The courts are slow in undermining an individual’s right to privacy, except those who perform official duties, in which case the press’s role as a government watchdog is still recognised. Greater attention is given to the question of whether the published information— be it graphic or verbal— is of public interest, or merely dictated by the public’s trivial and prurient curiosity.

In Singapore, the issue of the right to privacy is subsumed under the law of confidence, or more specifically, the law of confidential information. To succeed under this cause of action, the plaintiff has to prove before the court: that the information posses the necessary quality of confidence, that there exists an obligation of confidence between the disputing parties, and that an unauthorised use of the information is detrimental to the confider.

While the first requirement can be easily satisfied where the information is of a personal nature, at common law, the second is severely limited to cases where the parties share a pre-existing relationship leading to a duty of confidentiality. Otherwise, the plaintiff can only seek relieve in equity by proving that the defendant received information which he know or ought to know is confidential.

Contrary to the law in the US, where there is an ‘active’ stance to punish and deter the infringement of private rights, the remedies in Singapore are compensatory in nature, their effects corrective. One legal scholar opines that a stronger legislation is not necessary in Singapore because currently, the law on privacy rights is well developed under the common law and equity on a case-by-case basis.

Perhaps such a stance was adopted because in Singapore the appetite for celebrity gossips and scandal— a trait that ultimately feeds the ‘paparazzi’ phenomenon— is not as alarming as that in the US. Even celebrity tabloids that clutter the local media outlets, more often than not, feature photos and information of foreign artists, obtained second-hand from other media sources. Local celebrities are therefore spared from the bad romance that their US counterparts have with the paparazzi.