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Cm12345

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? South Dakota. Someone somehow downloaded our texting conversation as well as some of my voicemails and posted them on a fake Facebook account (with a fake name) in order to elicit a response from me. I have reported the posts and the account to Facebook with no luck of removal. I feel like this is violating my right to privacy or something. Who owns the rights to the transcript as well as the voicemails? Can I legally send a takedown notice without filing for a copyright?
 


quincy

Senior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? South Dakota. Someone somehow downloaded our texting conversation as well as some of my voicemails and posted them on a fake Facebook account (with a fake name) in order to elicit a response from me. I have reported the posts and the account to Facebook with no luck of removal. I feel like this is violating my right to privacy or something. Who owns the rights to the transcript as well as the voicemails? Can I legally send a takedown notice without filing for a copyright?

Who had access to the texts and voicemails besides you and the person with whom you were conversing?

If it was the person who was part of the exchanges who created the fake Facebook account, there is probably little you can do except to stop conversing with the person. S/he obviously does not care enough about you to keep what you say between the two of you.

Unless there was an understanding that all that was said and written was to remain confidential, you lost your right to privacy by disclosing to another in texts and voicemails whatever it was you disclosed in your communications.

The fake Facebook account is not using your name with an attempt to make others believe it is your account, is it?
 

Cm12345

Junior Member
It is the person I was conversing with that posted it. When we began talking we both told each other that everything we said would remain confidential because we told each other a lot of details of our personal lives before things got more intimate. There was a level of confidentiality discussed though that is not included in the transcript as the person cut off the beginning of it all. I have cut all ties with this person nearly a year ago and they keep doing things like this to me to elicit a response from me. The fake account is also under a fake name.
 

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
It is the person I was conversing with that posted it. When we began talking we both told each other that everything we said would remain confidential because we told each other a lot of details of our personal lives before things got more intimate. There was a level of confidentiality discussed though that is not included in the transcript as the person cut off the beginning of it all. I have cut all ties with this person nearly a year ago and they keep doing things like this to me to elicit a response from me. The fake account is also under a fake name.

Why do you think that you have any control over what somebody does with a chat transcript that belongs to them?
 

quincy

Senior Member
It is the person I was conversing with that posted it. When we began talking we both told each other that everything we said would remain confidential because we told each other a lot of details of our personal lives before things got more intimate. There was a level of confidentiality discussed though that is not included in the transcript as the person cut off the beginning of it all. I have cut all ties with this person nearly a year ago and they keep doing things like this to me to elicit a response from me. The fake account is also under a fake name.

Well, it appears to me that you have done all that you can do.

There is a publication of private facts tort that allows for a person whose intimate secrets have been disclosed to others to take action against the one who was bound by certain relationships to keep those facts private. But I am not getting the idea from your post that any such legal action can be supported. You take a major risk when you commit in a written exchange with another any information you wish to keep private.

Severing all contact with the untrustworthy person was smart. You are probably best off now simply ignoring all attempts by the person to elicit any response from you.
 

Proserpina

Senior Member
Never write anything - anything - you wouldn't want your spouse, kids, grandma, priest, employer or lawyer to see.

The Internet is forever.
 

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