Photos of Duchess of Cambridge Catherine Middleton sunbathing topless while on vacation in France continued to saturate the media in the past week as the Duke and Duchess win their first battle in an attempt to block further publication.
The scandal began on Friday, a day after Middleton delivered her first official speech overseas. Closer, which featured the photos of the Duchess with the headline, “Oh My God,” attempted to defend their decision of publishing the photos.
The French magazine said in a statement on its website that the photos would only appear in the French, not the British edition, and therefor there was no harm in the publication. The magazine also added that the photos were not degrading.
Though the court ruled in favor of the royal family, the editor of the magazine that ran exclusive shots of the Duchess of Cambridge topless has defended their publication on the grounds that the images are not degrading.
“These photos are not in the least shocking,” said Laurence Pieau, editor of the French edition of Closer. “They show a young woman sunbathing topless, like the millions of women you see on beaches.”
This stopped only the French from continuing with the publication of the photos. A few days later, Irish publication The Irish Daily Star and Italian publication Chi published more topless photos of Duchess of Cambridge Catherine Middleton despite the legal action that the royal family took to block further publication.
“There can be no motivation for this action other than greed,” a St. James’s Palace spokesperson told the BBC this weekend in regard to the Irish publication. The spokesperson also commented that the magazines’ decisions to publish the photos could lead to a longer court case where damages will be sought.
The royal scandal raises many privacy and ethical dilemmas.
The Duchess had a reasonable expectation of privacy because, as the French court ruled, she was “on the terrace of a private home, surrounded by a park several hundred meters from a public road, and being able to legitimately assume that they are protected from passers-by.”
Also, Middleton did not sign up for this when she chose to join the royal family. Still, it seems that there is no such thing as privacy anymore. Another example of lack of privacy are the nude photograph of Price William’s younger brother, Prince Harry, partying in a Las Vegas hotel.
The photographs of Price Harry surfaced the Internet last month and made headlines around the world. In Harry’s case, however, the palace contacted the Press Complaints Commission, which advised British newspapers to not publish the photos.
But beyond privacy, one can only wonder about the ethics of the editors of these magazines and for that matter, the photographer as well.
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2012/09/16/lawyers-seek-injunction-over-kate-middleton-topless-photos-palace-says/
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/09/14/kate-middleton-topless-photos-closer-magazine-editor-laurence-pieau_n_1883625.html
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