The caption for this video is somewhat misleading. While it is true no one went to her aid - I get the feeling that what prompted her to ponder a lawsuit is the fact that someone in mall management decided to post it on youtube without her permission. Think wiki-leak mentality.
I know we haven't completely figured out the new transparency in our lives brought about with cameras and youtube, but more and more it seems that personal responsibility will play an important role in the decision to post - not post - a video without the subject's approval.
So - it may be okay to take a picture or video of someone without their permission - but think long and hard BEFORE you post it for the world to see. We live in the days made famous by Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale - The Emperor Has No Clothes". Then it was a village that saw the emperor - - in today's connected environment - it would be the world.
Actually, the law in this kind of case is fairly clear and has been for a long time. Wire tapping, voice recording and other means to record one's behavior have been around for a while. In the criminal context, which is more stringent than the civil context, a person can be recorded without their consent unless they have an "expectation of privacy." This lady clearly should not have expected her fall to be a private moment because it happened in public. People were already exposed to the fall, the release of the tape simply expanded the number of people exposed.
Now, if a legislature were to change the privacy laws so that release of non-private videos into a mass media stream is not allowed, then you could argue that there is room to debate.
Posted by: me.yahoo.com/a/UQds3zAOy9XJf4l1wy6ldlh.Snj9yRM.IqDkblk- | January 20, 2011 at 03:10 PM