The Sun publishes naked Harry pics : Will others follow?

News Corp deliver knockout blow to Royal family

Prince Harry in the buff is on the front page of The Sun magazine today, in a defiant move by News Corp.

The Sun, which refrained from posting the pics for 3 days decided to go ahead despite a legal threat that publishing them would be considered a break of Prince Harry's privacy.

It is clear that the pictures have been widely circulated across the web. There is no doubt that most people in Britain will have at some point heard of this story, and been free to check the naked pictures elsewhere. This challenges the idea of the free press according to The Sun, and raises a debate as to whether newspapers should be allowed to publish these pictures regardless.

There are some facts that come into question. If another newspaper in another part of the world has already published the photos, do they count as public domain? Does that mean that any newspaper can re-publish them, as long as it was not released in the UK first?

Analysis

What about the rights of free speech online? It is impossible in my view to enforce a ban on these pictures, and the Royal family will find it very hard to sue every newspaper in Britain if the pictures are arguably widely available online, and accessible from a UK IP address. It is really time to face the facts. There is no stopping it unless you want to censor everyone in Britain from certain kinds of information. That will never happen.