The newspaper referred to her brief marriage to a man and published an \”inherently private\” photo of the 2007 civil partnership ceremony between Miss Trimingham and another woman.
A civil partnership, as with a marriage, is a public declaration. In fact, by definition it\’s a public declaration, that\’s the whole point of it, to stand up and in public declare the legal relationship between the two people, in front of witnesses and all.
Remember the witness thing? Right, that proves the the aim of the whole thing is that it is in public.
The fact of the marriage, yes. I’m not so sure about wedding photos becoming automatically public property.
I think maybe the point is that the class of “embarrassing things” is not congruent with the class of “private things”.
Used to be that you couldn’t exclude people from a wedding; don’t know if that’s still true (might have only been church weddings, not registry office ones).
Matthew (#1), if something happens in public, then a photograph of it isn’t an invasion of privacy (that’s simplifying a bit, but not much).
The only person who might be able to complain would be the photographer, for breach of his IP rights in the photo.
Matthew: if you’re talking about the wedding photos taken by the “official” photographer, you’re right: the copyright belongs to the photographer (note: not the subjects) and can only be published with his/her permission. The same with any photo you might take on your mobile at a, say, boys night out. You have the copyright. If you decide to publish it on Facebook or sell it to a tabloid, say because it depicts members of the the England rugby team indulging in naughtiness with dwarf-bowling waitresses, that’s up to you: you own the copyright. If you put it up on the web, you would be a fool to expect payment and shouldn’t be surprised if it goes viral (if it’s particularly juicy). If you flog it to a red-top, you will get paid but, unless you specifically sign away the rights, you still own the copyright.
Richard: you are right. You must have witnesses for a legal union, whether it’s marriage or a civil partnership, and whether it’s in a church or temple, or a registry office, a designated place (which has, by definition, to be a place accessible to the public) or wherever.
Tim is right. It just surprises me that for a woman described by her lawyer as “an experienced communications consultant”, Trimingham seems deeply ignorant of Media Law 101. What doesn’t surprise me is that Huhne should thus pick up on her. When you look at it, his whole career has been one “cataclysmic interference” after another.
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