Restrictive Picture Taking Law In Hungary

We saw footage here in Australia of young Germans turning up to a cancelled party - some facebook thing that had got out of control. Some of the participants were clearly identifiable.

There was no "public event" - in fact the Police were present to disperse the crowd. The persons were not of "public interest" though arguably the non-event was.

So from what you all are saying, the publishing of these photographs in Australia (on the TV news) would be illegal under German law, where the filming took place, unless each of the party-goers signed a model release?
 
tom.w.bn said:
For taking photos you don't need a written consent, you need some sort of contract for publishing. maddoc wrote about some general exceptions like events.

It's not even exactly clear, when a person is just a minor part of a photo and you as a photographer don't have a problem. Even the context where you show the photo can be important.

Example: I take a photo of the entrance of the dom in cologne, a person walks in the frame but is a minor part on the left. Now I put the photo on my website "Gothic churches around the world" with the description "the lovely entrance of ....". With that you should not have a problem. But only if your website is non-commercial.

Same photo, but I put it on my website "Ugly dressed people around the world" with the photo description "Look what this guy is wearing". Now you put the person in the foreground and you are in trouble.

You see it's complicated. But even with that, people take snaps everywhere for their private use and the world for tourists is not going down. But street photographers can have problems here because they put the person in the foreground of their photo.
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Hello Tom. Krotenblender and other German posters here,

This makes me cuirious.
As a Dutchman, living close to the German border i am working on a long term documentary project about a border city and it's inhabitants.
This project includes lots of portraits of citizens. From the pictures it is obvious they agreed to me to have their picture taken. I also got their verbal permission by stating the possible use of their picture (exhibtion and/ or artbook)/ BUT i have no signed model releases!!!
Because if i had done that that would have been a huge hurdle, not to mention way over the top because 80--90% of the portraits taken wil not be used anyway.

Can i use these portraits in a non-commercial way in Germany (show in exhibition ar art-related publication)?
Also curious about this in the Netherlands , Belgium or the United States!

I Can't imagine we are doomed to take only selfies in the nearr future:rolleyes:
 
It seems to me that laws are always made far more complicated than they should be, in order to keep lawyers employed and off the streets.

Given that, why would anyone expect good sense to enter into the matter?
 
tom.w.bn said:
I personally would do the exhibition but for the publication I'd invest more time in research or consult a specialized lawyer. (I'm no laywer and in Germany I must not give legal advice)
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Similar situation in Switzerland (law theory vs reality). What I do (and advice if asked): Just do your job. Properly, politely and without offending or vulgarizing the portrayed person. On that note chances are evidentially very small you will be charged because you published your pictures at an exhibition, web, postcard or similar channels.

Definitely different and tougher laws may apply if you use these personal images for advertising purposes.
 
J. Borger said:
Can i use these portraits in a non-commercial way in Germany (show in exhibition ar art-related publication)?
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As Tom said, a person shall not give legal advice, if he is not a lawyer. On that, we agree. (Offtopic: I just ask myself, if someone on the street yells at you, that it is not allowed to take picture here or of that - can we sue him for giving possibly false legal advice without being a lawyer...? :D)

Thus, I have only my opinion: Everything commercial should be done very carefully, ask a lawyer. Non-commercial might also be a problem, if you have bad luck and someone opposes the publication - because the law does not forbid taking pictures, but publication without agreement. And an exhibition is publication. But then, you don't get shot for these things and most often nothing happens. I once made a small exhibition of my street photography of the quarter I live in. The exhibition was openly visible to all people and took place where I took the pictures. Nobody cared, and I even had some nice talks with people who recognized themselves.

I think, it very much depends on the character of the people, you are dealing with, the type and contents of the pictures and how you interact as a photographer with people.
 
tom.w.bn said:
No. The § you cited sound so simple but if you look at some legal cases they were handled in many directions.
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Yes, as I said, this is in general and depending on the court, where one specific case is handled, results can be very different.

But there is (to my knowledge) no law, that explicitly forbids taking pictures in public even with people in it. A different matter is publishing, which is reasonable, I think. Not taking pictures because of some bogus rulings from some courts would be the wrong reaction. You know, judges are not always correct in their interpretation of laws...

If you stop using and possibly defending your rights, they will vanish. Until there is no law, explicitly stating that taking pictures in public is forbidden, I will continue to do that. If I get sued, I will try to protect that small piece of freedom. - If somewhen in the future, a law that restrictive is made, then it might be an important sign of righteousness, to break it, and see, what consequences such bogus law has. It could and should then be the first step to bring things back to normal and change laws back to a reasonable state.

Another point here is, that one should not deduce from some extreme cases that made their way into the media and raging forum threads (not this one) to normal picture taking that most of us here do. In Hungary it may be different, though.
 
... I suppose it would be possible to set up a camera on a tripod and then sue anyone who walked into the frame for Incitement to Commit a Criminal Exposure ... being Recklessly Photogenic or Going Equipped with Character
 
perhaps from now on Hungarians will all take up pinhole photography, with very long exposures (as long as no-one is sleeping within the frame)
 
... I suppose it would be possible to set up a camera on a tripod and then sue anyone who walked into the frame for Incitement to Commit a Criminal Exposure ... being Recklessly Photogenic or Going Equipped with Character
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There might even be a case under the Theft Act, for misappropriation of silver halide on the film. What about the Computer Misuse Act, after all, they would be interfering with the proper operation of the data within the camera... :angel:
 
krötenblender said:
As Tom said, a person shall not give legal advice, if he is not a lawyer. On that, we agree. (Offtopic: I just ask myself, if someone on the street yells at you, that it is not allowed to take picture here or of that - can we sue him for giving possibly false legal advice without being a lawyer...? :D)

.
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no, you cannot (at least in the case law less part of Europe) but you can sue a lawyer for false advice therefor lawyers have very expensive deals with insurence companies ;)
 
I saw that the other day... I think it is a great opportunity. Just do a series of street photos with the subjects blurred. If done properly it can add a bit of mystery to the photo and be a great statement to the whole thing... which sucks by the way
 
santino said:
no, you cannot (at least in the case law less part of Europe) but you can sue a lawyer for false advice therefor lawyers have very expensive deals with insurence companies ;)
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In Germany it is forbidden by law for a private person to give legal advice. That I was referring to.
 
MartinP said:
Well, if implemented, that is the end of the Hungarian tourism industry. And also photographic and mobile-phone businesses, and galleries and libraries.

No company would be able to offer a photo-printing service without being provided with a positive id and written document from every person in the picture, otherwise they would face legal action. Nor would any organisation be able to exhibit, store or publish any photograph without precise identification of, and legal release-form signed by, every person visible. Even with pictures pre-dating the law (assuming that it is not retrospective of course) it would be necessary to have incontrovertible proof of the date of the photograph. Indeed, what is the position with new prints of old photographs?
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The nut-jobs who want this law passed ought to give that one some serious thought. If it passes, I will take my "white devil/ugly American" tourist dollars and spent them elsewhere, as will thousands of other tourists and photographers. :D
 
krötenblender said:
In Germany it is forbidden by law for a private person to give legal advice. That I was referring to.
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I guess you mean "Winkelschreiberei", it forbids non lawyers to give legal advice for money (legal advice by privates for free should be ok but kinda risky - but then I'm not quite familiar with German law) :D
 
I think that Hungarians have bigger problems with laws made by the current government than this one. It obviously does not make any sense, and is impossible to enforce given current state of technology. Also most other laws banning the publishing will have to be changed, because for example if I make a selfie in front of the Colosseum, and there will be a passer by in the background, then he could sue me even if I only put this shot on my flickr or facebook. Life will challenge idiotic laws sooner or later.
 
Scrambler said:
We saw footage here in Australia of young Germans turning up to a cancelled party - some facebook thing that had got out of control. Some of the participants were clearly identifiable.

There was no "public event" - in fact the Police were present to disperse the crowd. The persons were not of "public interest" though arguably the non-event was.

So from what you all are saying, the publishing of these photographs in Australia (on the TV news) would be illegal under German law, where the filming took place, unless each of the party-goers signed a model release?
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If your picture has more than 6 regconized faces, you are fine, if I didn't read anything wrong.
As a young photographic student who comes from abroad, I found Germany is one almost impossible country to shoot streetlife :mad:. People go faster or cover their face when they see camera. The situation is maybe better in big cities like Berlin or Cologne but it's still s*** when lawyer or people who know law see you. :cool: That's why I like to shoot in Netherland or Czech, people are friendly and no one will bother you.
 
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