The Streisand Effect is a little-known axiom employed by people responding to frivolous lawsuits. I think it is particularly funny, considering how Babs is so quick to lecture us on who we should vote for (Hillary being the latest), the state of the planet (it’s hot, don’t you know), and the deplorable lack of sensitivity to the vast income inequality in our country and around the world (it is “out of control” she wrote). I say “funny” because I doubt very seriously whether Barbara would ever give away her money to help leaven the inequality, live in a home of less than 20 rooms or give away her private jet to help cool the planet, or ever admit that the people have a say in elections.
So, where does The Streisand Effect come from? This little ditty will attempt to explain.
Back in 2002, photographer Kenneth Adelman undertook a massive project wherein he photographed the California coastline in a series of 12,000 photographs. The purpose of the exercise was to document coastal erosion for the California Coastal Records Project, a government-sanctioned project focused on preserving the state’s massive coastline. Naturally, it was paid for by California taxpayers, which had I know about it then would have been added to already very long list of reasons not to reside in the state of my birth.
Anyway, Adelman took pictures of everything along the coast, including homes which were perched precariously along the mountain sides deemed in danger of eroding. [By the way, mountainsides along a coast line are ALWAYS in danger of eroding, but that’s another story.]
Among the many hundreds of homes he photographed, one of them belong to Babs Streisand. Others included Johnny Carson’s, Steven Speilberg’s, and Yoko Lennon’s.
Took a while, but in 2003 when it came to the singer’s attention that her home was displayed on a public website, her lawyers immediately lodged a lawsuit and sued the photographer, the site displaying the images (Pictopia.com), and even the server company hosting the actual files (Layer42). The total damages sought were for $50,000,000. Think about that number! $50 MILLION dollars. How was she damaged to that extent?
Before the lawsuit, nobody (aside from perhaps some die-hard fans) had any idea about the photo, much less the size of her palace. One might wonder what she was afraid of. But AFTER the lawsuit, the story was all over the news and nearly half a million people went to the website for the express purpose of looking at her house. The frivolous lawsuit ended up drawing exponentially more attention to the home than simply ignoring the photograph would have.
The Streisand Effect was thereby born. Mike Masnick, a writer at the time, immortalized the whole affair when he wrote:
How long is it going to take before lawyers realize that the simple act of trying to repress something they don’t like online is likely to make it so that something that most people would never, ever see (like a photo of a urinal in some random beach resort) is now seen by many more people? Let’s call it the Streisand Effect.
The greatest irony here is that not only did Streisand fail to keep her house under wraps, but she permanently linked her name to the futile attempt to do so. Not to mention her contribution to the clogged judicial system.
Remember the words of Will Rogers, “Live your life so that you would not hesitate to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.”
Thanks to How-to-Tech-Blog for the rudiments of this story.
