My opinion: the case of the student discussed is harassment, but nothing more. And photoshopped celebrity nudes are free speech.

In more detail:

Harassment — placing someone’s contact information in such a way as to ensure they get unsolicited and unwanted calls, texts, and/or emails certainly seems to qualify.

Defamation — I don’t see any defamation here. What does such a photo say, exactly? “Person X has been naked”? Not untrue, so not defamation. “Person X looks good naked”? That’s a compliment, not an insult, so not defamation. Maybe if you photoshop someone’s head onto an ugly naked body that would be defamation. “Person X posed for a nude photo”? I can see how some people might find being mistaken for having made that choice disturbing, but it still doesn’t seem to be defamation. Saying it is, in fact, is an insult to everyone who actually has posed for a nude photo. Including quite a few well-known and respected celebrities.

The only argument in the comments above for treating it as defamation seems to require a big and questionable inferential leap from the existence of a nude photo of someone to “Person X has very low standards in their selection of prospective sexual partners”. Unless the photo actually goes so far as to depict them in a gang-bang (and, somehow, makes it clear that it’s consensual on Person X’s part) I don’t see how this inference can be valid on that data.

Adding to all of this, a number of the celebrity nude fakes floating around out there, at least, are clearly labeled as such, which seems to obliterate any possibility of defamation as surely as the “This is a work of fiction. Persons depicted are fictitious or are used fictitiously.” found inside the front covers of many printed novels. (With celebrities, there’s also the “actual malice” bar to reach to prove defamation against a public figure.)

Copyright: Photoshopped fakes are clearly transformative uses. On the other hand, simply slapping someone’s name and phone number onto a photo (of them or anyone else) may be straightforward infringement. But it’s a single noncommercial infringement of a single photo. You’d be lucky to collect in small claims court. And the copyright probably is vested in the photographer, not the subject, unless it’s a work made for hire or a self-pic. In the case of the student, the only copyrighted material used was a photo whose copyright probably belonged to a large entertainment conglomerate somewhere, rather than the student. The photo wasn’t of her; it was the contact info that was hers. And the contact info is a collection of facts ungoverned by copyright law.

Publicity rights law: This might be usable by celebrities to attack fakes, but it wouldn’t be usable by a random non-public-figure person such as the student in the instant case.

My suggestions:

* The legislature should shelve the suggested legislation.

* A civil complaint for harassment should be used. Since the harasser apparently goes to the same school, school-internal disciplinary measures should also be used. And perhaps the two of them should actually try to work out their differences first.

* The website with the altered photo should be requested to take it down, on the grounds that the contact information on it is false and part of a harassment complain. They will probably comply (likely by replacing the photo with an unadulterated version) though they probably can’t be legally obligated to do so.

* The alligator law that has been referenced several times should also be repealed, and the existing nationwide laws against parking obstructing a fire hydrant broadened to simply say that it is a finable offense to obstruct firefighters’ access to a hydrant with either a large physical obstruction or anything that creates a hazard, and that any such obstruction or hazard may be impounded. This will cover cars parked blocking a hydrant, alligators or vicious dogs tied to one, or any similar thing, including unforeseen ones.

* More generally, legislation should be overhauled and new legislation written with an eye to the actual policy objectives. If it’s “deter making it difficult for firemen to use hydrants” then don’t write a law specifying alligators, or even cars. If it’s “deter causing people to receive unwanted calls and texts from random strangers” then write a law making it harassment to disseminate someone’s contact information widely (especially accompanied by any sort of enticement to use it) without their permission.

* I’d also argue that the latter may not even be a good policy objective. A superior ability to screen unwanted phone calls and texts would be a technological solution. In the case of a person’s physical location and that of their home and workplace, though, there may be an increased risk of actual violence to someone. Accompanying an address with something reasonably construed as intending to induce anger toward whoever’s there or explicitly instructing people to be violent should be regarded as an incitement to violence, however. So, someone’s photo and address and “Show him what we do to thieves around here” should probably be illegal, and that even if the charge of thievery was truthful.