Wallpaper, Porn, Privacy

We talk a lot about privacy and the internet here, so I'm rather curious what you think about an interesting story out of San Francisco. The owner of Castro porn shop Auto-Erotica downloaded a naked photo of a man from the internet, photoshopped a sex toy onto the bed next to him, and posted the photo in his store's window with a mocking commentary about the wallpaper above the naked man. Turns out, said naked man lives in San Francisco and was very upset to find the photo posted in the porn shop window.

Steve Baechtle, 42, is suing Auto-Erotica for $20,000, claiming "humiliation, embarrassment, hurt feelings, mental anguish and suffering." Baechtle, a "life coach", also says that he's lost 10 clients from the situation and has been "scorned and abandoned by his friends, exposed to contempt and ridicule and suffered loss of reputation and standing in the community." Store owner Patrick Batt removed the photo immediately when Baechtle complained and offered to settle Baechtle's initial $5000 suit for $250. Batt says that he found the photo on a porn site from Finland and that the photo is not copyrighted and therefore legal to use. Baechtle says that he had used the original (undoctored) photo on a personals site that included his email, which he says Batt should have used to request permission to use his photo.

Batt responded to the suit by filing papers saying Baechtle's "posting his picture online constituted a full release and waiver of any and all claims" against him, and that Baechtle "did not sustain any cognizable damages whatsoever." The Bay Area Reporter quotes an expert in privacy law who says, "You have the right that someone won't appropriate your name or likeness." Baechtle says that his clients abandoned him after seeing the photo because it damaged their "ethical expectations" of him.

What do you think? Does this guy have a case? Or do you pretty much surrender expectations of privacy when you post a photo to a site that can be freely viewed by anybody with a computer? The case will likely hinge on the fact that the photo was used in a commericial establishment, although proving it was used to benefit the business would be difficult. The two parties meet in August for a court-ordered case managment conference.