Alex Rodriguez Toilet Pic Could Mean Legal Doo-Doo For Peeping Tom

ARTIST RENDERING OF A-ROD SITTIN' ON A CAN, WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT

It ain't easy being a celebrity—oh sure, the money is fucking amazing, the perks are pretty great, and you probably will have strangers on social media mourning for you after you die. But there's also the downside, like when random people take photographs of you on the can mid-movement and then pass it around town as if that is a normal way to treat another human being.

Such is the situation Alex Rodriguez finds himself in today. The NY Post reports that someone was able to snag a photo of him while he was on the toilet in the $15 million apartment he shares with fiancée Jennifer Lopez in the supertall 432 Park tower. A-Rod apparently doesn't have (or perhaps doesn't use) curtains in the toilet, and a photographer from an adjacent building—possibly from one of the many hedge funds who have offices in the next building over—got the shot.

The Post adds that the photo "was making the rounds via email through Wall Street and media circles on Thursday, but it wasn’t clear who took the commode close-up."

A source told Page Six, "Alex’s lawyers are all over this. They are working hard to find out who the culprit is. It is a clear breach of privacy. The photo was obviously taken from the building next door, from a floor possibly parallel to Alex’s apartment. One of the hedge funds in the building next door will be getting a big lawsuit."

Back in 2013, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Eileen Rakower ruled that photographer and artist Arne Svenson, who took a series of surreptitious photos of his neighbors across the street and exhibited them in a gallery, had every legal right to do so. The argument in that case was that the peeping tom pics were being used as art, and therefore were protected as free speech.

Attorney Nancy E. Wolff​, who works in copyright, trademark and digital media law and represented Svenson, said New York has a very limited right of privacy law. In an email to Gothamist, she explained that the law "only restricts the use of a photograph without written consent for purposes of advertising or trade. There is no common law right of privacy. The argument by the photographer has to be that the picture was newsworthy and outside NY privacy law. The fact that the blinds were not closed will help whoever took the picture. The fact that many would not publish goes to journalistic standards, not legal I assume."

However, there is a major difference between this case and the 2013 one: she said "the Svenson photo series was tasteful and did not show any activity that one would assume was private. Also the images were sold as fine art. This incident needs to rely on the newsworthy exception, not the expressive work. I have no comment on whether this photograph is newsworthy. In the US, everyone wants pictures of celebrities."