The English High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, Jan. 17 granted an injunction barring British tabloid The Sun from publishing seminude photos of Academy Award-winning actress Kate Winslet's new husband, Edward "Ned" Rocknroll (Rocknroll v. News Group Newspapers, Ltd., [2013] EWHC 24 (Ch)). Rocknroll, who changed his name from Edward Abel Smith, is the nephew of Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group.

According to the court, Rocknroll attended a "fancy dress party" in July 2010 at his then-wife's parents' house in West Sussex, England. Photos of Rocknroll at the party engaging in what he described in court documents as "silly, schoolboy-like" antics-including some featuring nudity-were posted on a friend's Facebook account. According to the court, the friend claimed that his initial privacy settings restricted access to the photos to his 1,500 Facebook friends. The privacy settings were later changed to allow public access to the pictures, the court stated.

Rocknroll married Winslet in December 2012. The Sun, owned by defendants News Group Newspapers Ltd., sought to publish the photos in January, the court wrote.

Rocknroll filed a claim for an injunction, citing both his status as copyright owner of the photos and arguing that publishing the pictures would violate Article 8 of the European Human Rights Convention, according to the court. Article 8 provides for "a right to respect for … private and family life."

Rocknroll argued that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the photos because they were taken at a private party on private property, and, he maintained, a reasonable person in the same situation would consider it offensive to have the photos published in a national newspaper. Rocknroll said the photos of him would not "contribute anything of substance to any debate of general interest in a democratic society," the court wrote.

News Group countered that it should be able to print the pictures because they were publicly visible on Rocknroll's friend's Facebook account, according to the court.  Defendants further argued that Rocknroll waived any right to a private life because he allowed media coverage of his marriage to his former wife in 2009. Rocknroll also made himself a public figure by marrying Winslet, defendants claimed in court documents.

The court found Rocknroll had a right to protection under Article 8: "[T]he claimant's Article 8 rights are plainly engaged by the defendant's threat both to publish the Photographs[] and … a description of their content."

The court said Rocknroll's expectation of privacy was not compromised by his status as a public figure or by getting paid for publicity of his first marriage. The court noted that recently Rocknroll had kept his wedding ceremony to Winslet a secret from the press and that published photographs of Rocknroll and Winslet together did not appear to be "posed."

The court said that the photos were taken without Rocknroll's consent and only became public due to a change in Facebook's privacy settings after Rocknroll's friend posted them. A seemingly crucial factor for the court was that Rocknroll's friend did not anticipate that the photos would become accessible to the public or a national newspaper at the time he posted them in 2010. The court also noted that the public availability of photos on Facebook differs from disseminating the photos so extensively that "there is no longer anything by way of privacy left to be protected."

"No internet search of the claimant by his name would have revealed them, nor even a simple search or inspection of the wall-page or home-page of [the friend's] Facebook account. The probability is, on the present evidence, that the Photographs would only have been found either as the result of very expert, expensive and diligent research…," the court noted.

The court granted Rocknroll an interim injunction pending a trial.