Streisand loses privacy lawsuit

Barbra Streisand has lost an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit she brought against an environmental activist who posted an aerial photograph of her clifftop Malibu home on a Web site alongside 12,000 other pictures of the California coastline.

The singer and actress wanted the photo of her mansion removed and asked for six million pounds damages for what she said was an invasion of her privacy and use of a likeness of her property without her authorisation.

Judge Allan Goodman ruled in Los Angeles Superior Court that the photographer, Ken Adelman, who has photographed almost all of the 1,100-mile California coastline to show its splendours and push for its protection, had not intruded on her seclusion or invaded her privacy.

He said the photograph on the Web site did not show Streisand or any other person and was nothing more than “a picture of her backyard....not worthy of more than a passing glance.”