Possessory interests in images have limits when acquired through criminal or tortious acts

Evidence

Justice Scott Kafker asked: “In these awful circumstances where you’re performing, in the words of Mr. Crump, an illegitimate scientific racist experiment, should Harvard get to keep the pictures? I understand that they’ve got some difficult arguments to make to explain their property interest, but your simple point, just because you are the photographer you get to keep the pictures—there are exceptions to that rule. If you kidnap somebody and take half-naked pictures of them, you don’t get to keep the pictures. You take pictures of a child naked, that’s a crime—you don’t get to keep the pictures. So, there are limits on your possessory interest if it arises out of criminal or tortious behavior, right?” — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 1261

Categorization

• DEFINE: Lays out the doctrine that property rights in photographs can be forfeited when the photograph itself is the fruit of a crime or tort — the doctrinal heart of the case.
• ADDENDUM: Directly relevant to the sacrifice/reparations frame — Harvard holding images produced by a tortious act resonates with how institutions hold stolen things.
• DEEPTHINKING: The judge’s progression from kidnapping photos to child porn to enslavement photographs shows a court reasoning by analogy toward a limit on possessory interest that transforms ordinary property law.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots: My Fight with Harvard…, 1261
• XREF: connects to: Property rights are limited to what one can use before spoilage — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 40