reposting personal pics from a public site

[Tearabite]

on one of my sites there is an area where members post pictures of 'attractive' people's photos that they've found in Myspace.
Tonight i got an email from one of these Myspace people who's photo was reposted on my site, demanding that i remove the photo or they would 'take legal action'..
of course i respected her wishes and removed the photo immediately, but it brought up the question of who owns those photos and whether or not they are reproducable..

so..
a user of Myspace publicly posts their pictures in Myspace for the world to see. (does not Myspace now 'own' that picture?)

Some pervert copies that picture from myspace and posts it on my site, blabbing about how pretty the girl in the picture is.

the pretty girl, now outraged by her new fanclub threatens to sue the website owner.. but.. can she? does she own any copyright to that photo that was publicly posted on Myspace?

[Syzygy]

From their Terms and Conditions (TOS):

Proprietary Rights in Content on MySpace.com.

1. MySpace.com does not claim any ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, or any other materials (collectively, "Content") that you post to the MySpace Services. After posting your Content to the MySpace Services, you continue to retain all ownership rights in such Content, and you continue to have the right to use your Content in any way you choose.

Emphasis added.

Syzygy

[BigDave]

the pretty girl, now outraged by her new fanclub threatens to sue the website owner.. but.. can she? does she own any copyright to that photo that was publicly posted on Myspace?

Yes and yes.

<added>Copyright is meant to protect publically posted material. In its original form, you did not gain copyright UNTIL your content was published.</added>

[edited by: BigDave at 3:57 pm (utc) on Aug. 25, 2006]

[rawley2]

She can sue and is definitely within her right to do so.

She would more than likely not win.

Do a search on this. Most judges will not allow this can of worms to open because it would clog the court houses. I am sure someday there will be a supreme court ruling on this but until there is it's up to the judge.

Now if she is a professional model and she sells her images you have another problem and yes she will win that all day long. It like stolen adult content.

Remember if someone is willing to post their picture to a public place like my-space then they should be ready for what will happen.