Do you need a model release if ......?

Bob Michaels said:
My experiences with model releases are:

* The potential for the photo disappears during the preliminary discussion about model releases.

* The subject wants to know how much you are going to pay them for their signing a release.

* The subject becomes suspicious and refuses to sign.

* The subject does not understand, so refuses to sign out of caution.

I found model releases to be a insurmountable detriment to photographing people, so have not asked for one in 12 years at least.
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Dear Bob,

Exactly. What incentive has anyone to sign a model release? Let alone everyone in a crowd? But hey: you just take pictures. What do you know? Are you a licensed, social-security-paying, state-approved Artist?

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Edit: I love the idea that you have to be a registered, social-security paying, licensed, officially approved 'artist' (highlight 2). Have you any idea what it means to be an artist?

Cheers,

R.
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Roger, I think he was under the impression that the right to do fine art photography without releases only applied to people who made fine art their profession, as opposed to amateur photographer. I don't think he meant that the government approves or licenses photographers (aside from business licenses that any business has to have), only that paying taxes and being a business licensed to operate would be evidence that the photographer was, in fact, a professional rather than an amateur.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear Bob,

Exactly. What incentive has anyone to sign a model release? Let alone everyone in a crowd? But hey: you just take pictures. What do you know? Are you a licensed, social-security-paying, state-approved Artist?

Cheers,

R.
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I am all those except State Approved. The State of Indiana and the US Government don't care what kind of art I do; they just want me to pay my taxes and refrain from breaking laws relating to the operation of a business (eg. consumer protection laws, anti-discrimination laws, etc.), which I do.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
I am all those except State Approved. The State of Indiana and the US Government don't care what kind of art I do; they just want me to pay my taxes and refrain from breaking laws relating to the operation of a business (eg. consumer protection laws, anti-discrimination laws, etc.), which I do.
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Dear Chris,

It's rather different in some European countries (including France and I believe Germany), where different professions pay into different social security pots, and I think this is what he meant: that unless you pay into the Artists' social security pot, you're not an Artist.

Follow this link for a rather fuller explanation of the French example, Agessa. It may not make sense to an American, but then, I'm not sure it necessarily makes a lot of sense to many French people either: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agessa

Bad luck if you're an artist and a writer and a journalist...

Edit: incidentally, are you sure you're a licensed Artist? Rather than a licensed business owner? Assuming, of course, that your business needs a license.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
What law are you talking about? And in what country? Following a real law is not paranoid. Following an imaginary law is. The law in France (generally reckoned to have the toughest privacy laws in Europe, if not the world) has gone both ways. For example, a photographer who shot and published a book of pictures of people on the Metro in Paris was held to have been protected by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. There is no other overarching European law on the subject.
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We have a law (real not imaginary) in Germany that forbids publishing of people photos without their permission. There are a few exceptions (you already mentioned fine art). None of the exceptions apply to my snapshots, so I do this on my own risk.

Sometimes I forget that I'm the only non-artist in this forum. Please forgive me. :cool:
 
Roger Hicks said:
It's rather different in some European countries (including France and I believe Germany), where different professions pay into different social security pots, and I think this is what he meant: that unless you pay into the Artists' social security pot, you're not an Artist.
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It's the other way round. You become a full time artist, and then you have to be member of an artist social security organization where you get cheaper access to health care etc.
 
tom.w.bn said:
It's the other way round. You become a full time artist, and then you have to be member of an artist social security organization where you get cheaper access to health care etc.
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How many full time artists are there in Germany? Especially in fine art? Many supplement their income with teaching. Others take McJobs to pay for their habit. Some live on social security (for US readers: this is NOT the same as the old age pension, but is payable at any age).

How does anyone tell whether you're an artist (whether full time) or not? And if you're an artist (whether full time or not) before you start paying into the German equivalent of Agessa, are you not an artist?

Why are you personally not an artist? One of the best definitions of art is that it's what artists say it is. You choose not to be an artist; you choose to seek model releases. But why do you choose not to be an artist? If a child's stick drawing is art (as most would agree it is) then a snapshot is art.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
How does anyone tell whether you're an artist (whether full time) or not? And if you're an artist (whether full time or not) before you start paying into the German equivalent of Agessa, are you not an artist?
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Maybe I sent you in the wrong direction with what I wrote. Not the membership in that social security thing makes you an artist. What you do makes you an artist.

I wanted to express what I would look at, when I was a judge and had to find indicators if something is art. Membership in the artists social security organization could be ONE indicator.

I have problems with the excessive use of the term "art". I consider photography a well respected craft and if I worked with photography I'd rather be called a craftsman.
 
tom.w.bn said:
Maybe I sent you in the wrong direction with what I wrote. Not the membership in that social security thing makes you an artist. What you do makes you an artist.

I wanted to express what I would look at, when I was a judge and had to find indicators if something is art. Membership in the artists social security organization could be ONE indicator.

I have problems with the excessive use of the term "art". I consider photography a well respected craft and if I worked with photography I'd rather be called a craftsman.
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The catch, though, is that the judge is equally under an obligation to say what ISN'T art -- which is quite difficult. Although I share your concerns about 'art' and 'craft', I see the problem from the opposite direction: 'art' and 'craft' are a false dichotomy. The distinction began to appear in the 16th century; exploded in the 18th; and was taken to impressively meaningless lengths in the 20th.

Cheers,

R.
 
tom.w.bn said:
Why I would pay and didn't go to court? Because I'm no artist, I don't pay into the social security insurance for artists and I didn't have any art exhibitions. No judge would follow my argument that I published that photo as "fine art".
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Wrong. Indeed it is a constitutional principle of German law that art and the press are free - including freedom from admissional hurdles like that. Whether the context makes it art is a different question.
 
Very interesting and informative discussion. I always wondered about this before following RFF. To illustrate how wrong most people seem to have it, that should have it right; I sat beside a young woman on a bus who (after noticing my rangefinder) claimed to have taken a college journalism course and asked if I got model releases, since she said she was taught that you needed to. I suspected at the time that she didn't properly understand what she was being taught, but she of all people should have had it right.
 
Fawley said:
Very interesting and informative discussion. I always wondered about this before following RFF. To illustrate how wrong most people seem to have it, that should have it right; I sat beside a young woman on a bus who (after noticing my rangefinder) claimed to have taken a college journalism course and asked if I got model releases, since she said she was taught that you needed to. I suspected at the time that she didn't properly understand what she was being taught, but she of all people should have had it right.
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Exactly. This is why I tend to sound like a broken record when it comes to this topic. All too many people seem to work on the principle that a lie, if repeated often enough, becomes the truth. I prefer to put the boot into the lie.

Cheers,

R.
 
sevo said:
Wrong. Indeed it is a constitutional principle of German law that art and the press are free - including freedom from admissional hurdles like that. Whether the context makes it art is a different question.
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As is the question of whether the context makes it news. Is a report on the Arles Rencontres news? It would be quite hard to frame a definition of 'news' that would exclude such a report.

Cheers,

R.
 
sevo said:
Wrong. Indeed it is a constitutional principle of German law that art and the press are free - including freedom from admissional hurdles like that. Whether the context makes it art is a different question.
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So you say it's enough to classify your photos as art and you are always on the safe side? I give it up.
 
We have a law (real not imaginary) in Germany that forbids publishing of people photos without their permission.
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Well, I'm waiting to see exactly what happens when an over-zealous politzei arrests a foreign tourist in the middle of Dresden. Quite apart from Article 10, what bad old memories will that resurrect?
 
tom.w.bn said:
So you say it's enough to classify your photos as art and you are always on the safe side? I give it up.
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No. But you do not have to be a certified artist to produce art. Neither can somebody whose only profession and source of income is art get away with everything illegal by claiming it to be art.
 
Clearly, the only things left to photograph "safely" are publicly-owned spaces without people or man-made structures, or within ones own home (and also without people). Or the moon I suppose.
 
MartinP said:
Clearly, the only things left to photograph "safely" are publicly-owned spaces without people or man-made structures, or within ones own home (and also without people). Or the moon I suppose.
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That statement is very location specific and certainly does not apply in the United States.
 
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