LawClanger Link

[major_clanger]

What is a Computer? (Or, is it an offence for the police to tell you to delete pictures from your digital camera?)

Comments

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Excellent article (just linked to it on my Facebook).

Could it also be argued that these photographs are property with a tangible value? If so, are the Police authorised to force you to destroy your own assets?

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Interesting question! A photograph isn't quite an intangible asset (e.g. a right to property) but it can definitely have value. If you could prove that the deletion of the photo caused actual financial loss rather than just annoyance and distress, you might have a civil claim in damages.

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

Yes, surely any photo you take is an intellectual property, not that that argument would ever deflect Plod from defending the country against Home Counties terrorist togs.

How much debate and discussion is there in British law circles about defining a camera as a computer? This is an excellent question you've raised.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

IP (artistic copyright) subsists in a photo that you take. But destroying IP is not an offence or even a civil wrong - only copying it without permission is! Indeed, according to one of the leading reference texts on copyright, destroying an original work doesn't even infringe the moral rights of the creator in the way that changing or distorting it would, because its simple absence doesn't risk lowering the reputation of the author.

[uitlander]

Yes, I too am interested in the definition of a 'computer' having been ordered two years ago to delete photos by a security guard who threatened to 'confiscate' my camera.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Or, as we legal types say, 'steal'. Unless I am very mistaken, security guards have no right to confiscate items from you at all, other perhaps than the right under common law to protect themselves or those around them by disarming someone threatening use of a weapon.

[timill]

Is it theft, or is it robbery?

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

If force or use of force was threatened, then yes, it would be robbery. If it was more a case of "hand over your camera or I will get you into a lot of trouble" then the offence would probably be blackmail under s.21 Theft Act 1968.

[uitlander]

That is pretty much what I said to him at the time (based on no legal knowledge/training) and he backed down eventually, even on the demanding that any photos be deleted (he was concerned I might have been taking photos of a jewellers display - I hadn't, which he could see when I showed him the images on the camera screen. Being polite and reasonable appeared to deal with this particular instance.

I have also previously had a run in with a ticket inspector on a train who took offence at my photographing a sunset. In that instance he argued that it was illegal to take photographs on railway property and again tried to confiscate my camera, probably committing an assault as he tried to grab it from me. In that case a number of people in the carriage turned on him and made it clear that he was behaving unreasonably and he backed down, not particularly graciously. Again I have no idea if he had any legal basis for his claim about photographs taken from a train.