I'd be about a thousand times more skeptical of the Post story than believe that her attorneys don't know about the DMCA procedures to protect their client's copyright.

If someone had told me when I took a copyright class that some of the longest outside of school conversations I would have about copyright would be about naked pictures of famous people, I would not have believed you.

Considering that this is basically how music companies essentially steal ad-share revenue from legit original artists (by falsely submitting DMCA claims to Youtube), she has pretty much nothing to lose by doing this. For once, I'm glad that the Internet is broken in that way.

Is that still the method if the porn site is hosted in say.....the Netherlands? (or any other country)

Except that I've had photos taken that are contractually owned by the company who paid for the shoot. It's not unreasonable to think that some of these photos are professional photos. If you've sold your image specifically, then someone else has agency over the property so it's reasonable that they would use this…

What about non-copyright holders who fairly use others' content in order to critique it?

Exactly. My first response upon seeing this headline was "No, they can't do that." It's unambiguous. This site is going to positively rue the day they decided to play armchair lawyer with someone else's nudes.

It seems like there must be more to it than that though. For one thing wouldn't the person asserting copyright actually have to have copyright (or at least legitimately believe that they do)? Otherwise it's fraud. What would happen if I sent a DMCA takedown to YouTube asserting copyright over the latest Justin…

I think it's entirely possible that the porn site has received a valid DMCA notice from Lawrence's people and has chosen to ignore it. They might be willing to waive the safe harbor provision and risk the potential damages from litigating the copyright issue, should Lawrence choose to file an infringement suit.

I'd have to disagree with you about the DMCA being "one of the simplest, most fair laws on the books." Bad faith DMCA letters have proven a powerful tool for chilling all kinds of speech, including by trolls looking to stifle feminist cultural criticism.

You'd think entertainment lawyers would have a passing familiarity with IP law, especially basic DMCA rules that practically every YouTuber can quote.

you know, you could make some good money as a celebrity (or even regular person) identity and privacy protection lawyer or consultant.

She needs to get lawyers with better knowledge of copyright (so does the porn website, for that matter). Pictures are automatically copyrighted. Registering adds some extra protection, but it's not actually necessary. She or her people should be able to file a DMCA notice.

I was coming down here to post exactly this. I used to work at an ISP, and we got DMCA complaints for things like this all the time. They need to take down the images first, then they can argue about who took the picture or whatever. If they won't, their upstream will make them. The upstream doesn't give a shit about…

That's presuming that Lawrence is the owner of the copyright. That's the issue here - who the copyright owner is for some of the photos.

Fuck them. This is all bullshit and they should be boiled alive. Ridiculous that we're all gushing over this shit when there are important things happening in this world.

Yup, the only reason I would ever change my name for would be for the sake of awesomeness. Unless my future spouse is named Rockefeller or Wilder, I'll be keeping my uncommon but easy to spell name (that as of yet isn't shared by any celebrity).

It's 2014. Why the hell is this still an issue? Didn't we go through this crap in the 70s, when people had divorced parents? Was I so fucking revolutionary in the 80s to keep my real name upon marriage, aka my "maiden name" ? Don't women have their OWN NAMES yet? [screams, punches drywall]

For years when I write Christmas or Halloween cards (shut up, I can send cards for any holiday I want), if I know that Casual Friend X is involved by I'm not sure if they're married or how the Other Person wants to be addressed, I put "Friend X and family" or, for the Halloween cards, "to Friendenstein Manor." I had…

It's a summer suit! What don't people understand about that? He's not a goddamn funeral director.