Droit à l'image in California?

Great article on paparazzi by Mr. Alan Harnick on the NYSBA site. The article sums up very clearly the tension between newsworthiness & right to privacy. It also cites the California "anti-paparazzi" law, and I wondered: is California is the only U.S. state to have a droit à l’ image?

The California Civil Code protects against the “invasion of privacy to capture physical impression.” According to section 1708.8 (b), “A person is liable for constructive invasion of privacy when the defendant attempts to capture, in a manner that is offensive to a reasonable person, any type of visual image, sound recording, or other physical impression of the plaintiff engaging in a personal or familial activity under circumstances in which the plaintiff had a reasonable expectation of privacy, through the use of a visual or auditory enhancing device, regardless of whether there is a physical trespass, if this image, sound recording, or other physical impression could not have been achieved without a trespass unless the visual or auditory enhancing device was used.”

The defendant cannot use the fact that no image was taken or no image was sold. Even though these laws are “anti-paparazzi laws,” they also may have a chilling effect on artists, and maybe on press, as Mr. Hartnick notes in his article. Mr. Hartnick notes "the difference, if any, between entertainment and news perhaps should not be left to judges, but to editors."

Have public figures lost their right to privacy? William Prosser believed that public figures had lost “to some extent at least, their right of privacy.” Prosser defined a public figure as “a person who, by his accomplishments, fame, or mode of living, or by adopting a profession, or calling which gives the public a legitimate interest in his doings, his affairs, and his character, has become a “public personage.”

In France, famous and non famous person alike may protect their rights to their own images. What is a public person for the French law? The Paris Court of Appeal defined it as “a person whose name, photograph and details about her professional life are often published in the press.”

So a person is famous if her image in often published in the press, yet, a famous person has the right to prevent her image to be published in the press, and could then lose her status of "famous person." This definition is good for starlets, but not as convenient for persons who acquired their "famousness" outside of tabloids.