Nude celebrities on the Internet

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The Internet has been popular for transmission of pornography. One genre that has become popular is images and videos of nude celebrities.

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[edit] Background

The commercial demand for images of nude celebrities has been known for many decades. Playboy magazine is renowned for offering famous women large amounts of money to appear nude in its magazine, and more downmarket pornographic magazines search far and wide for nude pictures of celebrities taken unaware — for example, when they are bathing topless or nude at what the subject thought was a secluded beach, or taken before the individual was well-known. These paparazzi photos are in high demand among the yellow press.

Many images found on the Internet and in the yellow press are fake images, primarily made with various digital image manipulation techniques. In the US, the possibility of civil court action restricts the availability of such photos through the print media. On the Internet, the difficulty of applying court sanction makes circulation of such photographs much less risky. Untold numbers of such photographs circulate through Usenet, and fly-by-night commercial operators, often in countries beyond the reach of courts, also offer such photos for commercial gain. Copyright restrictions are often ignored. Images containing nipple slips can be found on many websites.

Real images of nude celebrities fall into four main categories:

Film screenshots: Many actors and actresses have done nude or partially nude scenes in non-pornographic mainstream films. Screenshots from these films are circulated widely and can usually be recognized by the low picture quality (from video). However, increased popularity of broadband internet access makes possible the distribution of actual video clips and higher quality images, these usually copied from DVDs. Often screenshots of these scenes are displayed in several frames as tiles.

Paparazzi photographs: Occasionally, celebrities are photographed in revealing real-life situations; the most common scenario is a woman sunbathing topless, usually on a beach, yacht or by a pool. The photos are usually taken from a distance and rarely reveal more than breasts. These rare occurrences include paparazzi shots of fully nude celebrities such as Uma Thurman, Brad Pitt, Jude Law, Shemar Moore, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vanessa Paradis, Janet Jackson and Alyssa Milano. Other types of paparazzi images of nude celebrities include 'nipple slips', in which low cut dresses, lack of a bra, an accidental fall of clothing or camera flash glares may reveal a celebrity's nipples. Examples include Alyssa Milano, Alexandra Kerry, Tara Reid, Sophie Marceau, Paris Hilton, Paulina Rubio, and Lindsay Lohan.

A final form is the increasingly frequent occurrence of an "upskirt" shot of female. Most such images show underwear, but some situations (such as celebrities exiting cars) have resulted in snapshots which show genitalia; these include images of Farrah Fawcett, Jenna Bush, Margaret Trudeau, Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson, Lindsay Lohan, and Britney Spears.

Nude photo shoots: Mainstream sex magazines such as Playboy or photographic art magazines such as Black and White routinely feature nude shoots of celebrities. Some celebrities have modeled for nude photographs prior to becoming famous. Such images are often later redistributed in digital form by the publisher, or by a third party.

Main article: Celebrity sex tape

Stolen private materials: Rarely, private sexual photographs or videos are stolen or obtained from a former lover/spouse and show up on the Internet. Some famous examples are Tonya Harding's "wedding video", private videos featuring Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, a video made by Paris Hilton and her then-boyfriend, Rick Salomon and a stolen video from Fred Durst's computer.

A few celebrities whose real nude Internet pictures have become mainstream items include Pamela Anderson, Tonya Harding, Tommy Lee, Chu Mei-Feng, Jude Law, Colin Farrell, Janet Jackson, Paris Hilton, Imogen Thomas, Jonny Davis and Peter Wentz.

[edit] Famous cases

[edit] Fake images

Fake images can, when found isolated, be confused for real images. They are usually made by cutting and pasting the heads of celebrities onto the bodies of nude models, although sometimes the parts of nude models are pasted onto a picture of a celebrity. Almost all fake images portray the celebrity in question doing things that normally the person would be unlikely to do, sometimes with people they don't know. Occasionally, fake images revolve around a theme of one of the celebrity's works. For example, certain fakes of Keira Knightley have a Pirates Of The Caribbean theme, and certain fakes of Angelina Jolie have a Tomb Raider theme. Fake pictures can usually be found individually by an image search on google or other search engines.

There are websites dedicated to the genre that collect and display fake images or have a user community that makes their own. Most are advertised as "free", but however are often pay sites.

Some individuals have gone to great effort to expose fake celebrity images. One of the most popular sites is The Fake Detective [5], which is run by Ed Lake, a retired Air Force weather observer from Racine, Wisconsin. Lake has been profiled by Wired Magazine [6] and on TechTV.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Celebrity Shock
  2. ^ Wiley Pics