Photographer and Security face off yet again

[Krasnaya_Zvezda]

The design is a copyright. It is the same as someone taking a picture of you and making millions on it.

If I'm in a public place, and someone takes a photo of me worth millions, they have every right to it.
That's how papparzzi make their living, no?

 

[Penguin_101]

If I'm in a public place, and someone takes a photo of me worth millions, they have every right to it.
That's how papparzzi make their living, no?

True, but the building is still their design and they have every right to do what they want with it.

 

[stet]

If I'm in a public place, and someone takes a photo of me
worth millions, they have every right to it.
That's how papparzzi make their living, no?

I was just wondering about this. Public property is fine you can shoot whatever and whoever -- but does that really just extend to news and art? For instance, on Photoethnography.com, there's model release forms that Karen Nakamura says (in the glossary) that she'll use if she's selling the photo -- generally not when used editorially.

Also, I had a friend whose main job working for the TV show "Hack" was to scope on on-location sites in PHhladelphia for possible logos lurking in the background and contact the show's legal department so they could work out whether it was kosher to shoot there, or if the logo owner wanted to get paid. (for instance, shooting at Geno's Steaks, which is cool with the owner, but contacting Coke about the big neon out front). He told me how there's this weird setup with some public art that actually belongs to the artist, and how one artist wanted to get paid for every second his mural showed up on the show.

The underlying thing for these are that the subjects would be used to make profit -- as opposed to being used editorially, where it can be argued that the overall pic is conveying information/news from a public place, or a private one with permission. So what happens if you're a street photographer, and then one day you put out an art book, or you have a show where you're selling your prints? I'm imagining someone walking into an art gallery and seeing a candid pic of himself selling for a grand!

Is there a guideline for this stuff?

 

[Flow]

If I'm in a public place, and someone takes a photo of me worth millions, they have every right to it.
That's how papparzzi make their living, no?

There is a difference between paparazis and us. They are press photographers. By law they can take pictures for editorial purposes without worrying about anything. But if we were to take picture of something that belongs to another party, technically we need permission just to post it up in online galleries.


Flowen

 

[bmattock]

Penguin_101,

Oh that is cool. Haha though I would love to bable about Linux but I think this is the wrong forum to do so. Will just do that on linux.com. Haha...


Flowen

Dudes, I used MINIX before I used Linux. I used Coherent before I used Linux. I ran an ATT&T 3b2 on Unix System 7 with 20 dumb terminals and a 2-line 2400 bps pirate BBS on a 20meg hard drive out of my apartment in 1985. I used to hack bios chips to get 14 mhz out of a 286. I was running Slackware 96 when it took a week to compile your kernel on a 286 and arcnet was considered just as likely to 'win' as ethernet. I ran Lantastic and am Novell 2.1.2a certified (whoopee)! I wrote C programs on a CP/M machine and COBOL on VAXen boxen. I used to swap emails with Vint Cerf. I can make Perl stand up and beg.

I'm OLD, but I run Linux too.

All my PC's are Linux. Vuescan, The Gimp, Fedora and Suse, and my trusty KM SD IV scanner, and I'm ready to rock.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks, CIIU

PS - And when I meet the young punk rockers with the shaved heads and spiked hair and so on, I tell them I was partying in the mosh pit with Henry Rollins and Black Flag when I was 18 at the Whiskey-A-Gogo in LA and Social Distortion in Huntington Beach in 1979 and I tell them - I'm what happens when punks get old, bud. We get fat and bald and we plant azaleas for our wives on the weekend. Wot a drag it is getting old.

 

[Krasnaya_Zvezda]

True, but the building is still their design and they have every right to do what they want with it.

The argument is patently absurd. If that were the case, and designers of buildings owned a copyright on the image protecting their intellectual property from unauthorized photos, then I submit to you that the designer of any famous structure in the world is owed millions of dollars for copyright infringement. Every photog who ever made a nickel from a shot of say, Manhattan, showing the Empire State Building, or the former WTC, would owe its designer. Every time a building was shown on commercial network television, there would be a fee owed. Nope. It doesn't work that way. The architects certainly own the design, and you can't go out and build another building exactly like theirs, but the image can't be protected like that.

 

[Flow]

Dudes, I used MINIX before I used Linux. I used Coherent before I used Linux. .

Oh god... I am not that old... I never used MINIX. I think when UNIX was invented I was like what... -10 years old? 😛


Flowen

 

[Fedzilla_Bob]

I'm imagining someone walking into an art gallery and seeing a candid pic of himself selling for a grand!

I think that is where the release forms come in. problem is spotaneity goes right the heck out of the window at that point...

"got a shot... oh wait a second sir... I need you to sign a release form that says it's ok for me to have this image of you walking down the street with your secretary/girlfriend that your wife will likely see at my next gallery showing"

Bob H

 

[Flow]

The argument is patently absurd. If that were the case, and designers of buildings owned a copyright on the image protecting their intellectual property from unauthorized photos, then I submit to you that the designer of any famous structure in the world is owed millions of dollars for copyright infringement. Every photog who ever made a nickel from a shot of say, Manhattan, showing the Empire State Building, or the former WTC, would owe its designer. Every time a building was shown on commercial network television, there would be a fee owed. Nope. It doesn't work that way. The architects certainly own the design, and you can't go out and build another building exactly like theirs, but the image can't be protected like that.

Actually they really do own the building's design copyright. They as in the architecture firm or the architects who designed the building. BUT! Copyrights do expire. Also, they do not own the building. So most of the time it is the building's owner who butts out people from taking pictures of the buildings.


Flowen

 

[Krasnaya_Zvezda]

There is a difference between paparazis and us. They are press photographers. By law they can take pictures for editorial purposes without worrying about anything. But if we were to take picture of something that belongs to another party, technically we need permission just to post it up in online galleries.


Flowen

I'm sorry, I just don't think that's right. I'll say right up front that I could be wrong, but l don't believe legally there is any difference from a photographer from US magazine shooting a picture of some celebrity who is walking down the street, and me doing the same thing, and selling it. And as for asking permission, I can think of any number of photos, Pulitzer prize stuff, money was certainly made from them and no releases signed. The little naked napalmed Vietnamese girl didn't sign any release! How about Jack Ruby?

 

[stet]

you all have probably seen this already, but it's a good a thread as an to post it:
flyer on photographers' rights:

http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm


Bob: Ha! Makes me think of this weekend's 'one that got away' -- mom, dad, and daughter at an oudoor cafe table and mom busting dad sneaking a long glance at a cutie in a short skirt. The cutie was fondling some trinket at a market stall, and the kid was absorbed in her drink. Mom glaring at dad, and dad in lala-land with the corners of his mouth having the slightest turn upwards. Dammit, I was too slow!

 

[Flow]

Hello KZ,

It is really not the matter of right and wrong. I agree with your point. But press photographers are protect by law to be able to use images they took for editorial purposes and they can use them without permission. Sadly, that is just the way it is. It is law.



Flowen

 

[Krasnaya_Zvezda]

Hello KZ,

It is really not the matter of right and wrong. I agree with your point. But press photographers are protect by law to be able to use images they took for editorial purposes and they can use them without permission. Sadly, that is just the way it is. It is law.



Flowen

Well, I would appreciate it if you could educate me on this. What law is it, and why is there a distinction between "press" photographers and anyone else?
I have many times told my wife, when she kids me about carrying a camera all the time, "Someday something is going to happen in front of me, I'll get a photo of it and get the Pulitzer and make a million." So you are telling me that if I got a shot of (example) some famous televangelist stumble drunkenly out of a strip joint, right into Main Street, prostitutes hanging from each arm, at broad daylight noon, I could not sell that photo? But a press photographer could? Please help me to understand, and I'll take my answer off the air.
See you tomorrow.
Oh, one more word before I retire: Zapruder.

 

[Flow]

Hello KZ,

Hmmm if you want to get really technical, Arnold P. Lutzker and Leonard D. DuBoff has good books on legal issues regarding photography. Also you may consult books from ASMP to get into issues like these. I will not get too technical here because else my message will be way to long. Also I do not do press so I may not be able to explain to you correctly.

But as what I know, the laws does not directly protect the press photographer. It protects their firm. Because at the end it is the firm that usually ends up owning the images. And news agency can publish anything for editorial purposes and being protect from people sueing. That is why if a press photographer took a picture of your family and it ends up to be an award winning picture, you cannot do antyhing about it. That is unfair I know. But it is just the way that is.


Flowen

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

In the US, you can photograph all you want, legally, from a public right of way. It's the law. Note, however, I said "public" as in "owned by a governmental body and not private property".

Guess again; I know of a friend who experienced something similar (the post that initiated this thread) for a while, but with some more intense and stressful questioning for taking pictures of a Federal Building (which he didn't know it was the Federal Courtroom) in Minneapolis; I also know of an acquaintance that got his film confiscated for taking pictures of God knows what it was off the Freeway. I was very rudely yelled at to immediately stop taking pictures of the St. Louis Arch when I was on the Illinois side of the river.

No, you cannot photograph all you want "from a public right of way". It is slowly turning into a rule of suspension of Habeas Corpus, and only a few of us frogs in the pot are complaining it's not the right temperature (well, the right pot).

 

[stet]

Oh, one more word before I retire: Zapruder.

heh ... this can actually make the argument more dfficult. Zapruder sold the original (and rights) to Life Magazine.

 

[T_om]

Man, there is so much incorrect information being given in this thread that to even START to clear things up would take all day. 🙁

Guys, legal advice you get in a free camera forum is worth exactly what you paid for it. It is entertaining to hear, but pretty much useless.

Tom

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Oy, good point, Mr. Stone (Red Star) 😉

And Tom: you're right; giving, suggesting or taking legal advise is, well, not adviseable, ever, off any forum that I've ever visited. If we were all lawyers in the other hand, that would be another story (and a catastrophe)

 

[Flow]

Oh well. I am a scientist not a lawyer. Guess I will stop. Whenever security tell me to stop taking pictures, I will just put my camera away.



Flowen

 

[T_om]

Guess again; I know of a friend who was detained for a while for taking pictures of a Federal Building (which he didn't know it was the Federal Courtroom) in Minneapolis; I also know of an acquaintance that got his film confiscated for taking pictures of God knows what it was off the Freeway. I was very rudely yelled at to immediately stop taking pictures of the St. Louis Arch when I was on the Illinois side of the river.

No, you cannot photograph all you want "from a public right of way". It is slowly turning into a rule of suspension of Habeas Corpus, and only a few of us frogs in the pot are complaining it's not the right temperature (well, the right pot).

Sorry, but it is no "guess".

As for your friend being "detained", they now have an actionable basis for a suit against the "detaining" party (which you neglected to identify, by the way). That is, unless they were actually arrested by law enforcement officers.

Next, your friend that that got his film "confiscated". "Confiscated" by whom? You once again neglected to identify the "confiscators". The only people that have that authority are law enforcement personnel (not rent-a-cop security guards) and then only in the act of arrest. They can "confiscate" YOU and your film, but unless they are in the act of arresting you, even cops can't make you give up your film.

As for this:

No, you cannot photograph all you want "from a public right of way".

You are just wrong. However, arguing with you about it will change nothing.

Tom