Right now, I am putting myself at risk of being sued.
Why? Well, I'm filming in public, in Paris, in France.
And French privacy law is some of the strictest and worst-defined in the world.
See, it's been built over years, not by lawmakers, but by judges and case law.
And what it means is this: just having someone identifiable in the back of my shot,
even if I then don't publish it, might be grounds for someone to sue me.
Or, maybe it won't. It's unclear.
There are cases that have gone both ways. Maybe I should blur anyone's face
who's even remotely in the back of shot, or
maybe I shouldn't. It's still unclear.
Maybe, if there's any modern architecture in the back of the shot,
I should blur it out because that's copyrighted.
Or, maybe under some other cases, it isn't.
One thing has been clear though: I can take a photo of the Eiffel Tower in daytime,
and it's fine, it's not under copyright any more.
But, if I take a photo at night, the lighting design on it - that is copyrighted.
And so, I'd need a license before I were to publish that online.
To make matters even more complicated, I am British,
and I'll be publishing this when I'm in Britain,
to YouTube which is an American company,
which has an office in France.
It would be a complete mess. Maybe I'd win if someone brought a case against me,
maybe I wouldn't. But, either way, there'd be a long and costly legal battle.
British law has a reasonable expectation of privacy in your own home, or in a private place
but in public, if you're filmed, there's not much you can do about it.
American law is much the same based on their First Amendment,
and their very strong freedom of speech laws.
But here? Well, France puts the power very much in the individual and their right to privacy
over my right to film them.
Maybe that's right. Maybe that's wrong. And, as for all these tourists around here taking photos, well...
let's hope nobody sues them.
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Bye bye, Duggan!