Your image - your rights

[Mike McCarty]

This subject has been discussed before on this forum, but I've had some questions in light of what I saw on TV during hurricane Katrina.

There are people like myself who, after asking permission, would take a picture of a stranger in the park. After taking this picture they may use it as a reference for a painting, and proceed to use all there skills to put this person in the best and most flattering light. However, other than the verbal permission, there is no contractual agreement which gives the artist the right to use the strangers image. The consensus on the forum has always been to get a models release signed before proceeding to use the image liberally.

Why is it that TV reporters can act in such a cavalier manner in capturing real time images of people experiencing the most humiliating moments of their lives? There is no doubt that the images are used for profit. Even with the subject shouting their objection to the reporter they would proceed.

A person like myself who wants to create a thing of beauty with verbal permission is advised that they should get a signed legal release, and a TV reporter can proceed not only without a verbal or written permission, but, in the face of a shouting objection.

Is there some perverse right that the media has that I do not?

[Michele Rushworth]

I wonder if "news" falls under the "fair use" portion of privacy and copyright laws. Doesn't seem right, does it?

[Carolyn Bannister]

This is something that I've never understood, how another person can have the right to intrude in another's life and then plaster the image all over the place for everyone to see and to make a profit to boot.

Doesn't make sense to me.

Following on from that, yesterday I was speaking to a client who told me that she had been very busy all day printing and making Christmas cards for everyone ( the parish and family) using the photograph I had sent her by email of the portrait.

I jokingly said that she obviously hadn't read the small print then and had missed the rules about copyright!

Thinking about it later I was flattered that she wanted to use the image but this started me thinking about future work. This was a commissioned portrait so she would obviously only be sending the cards to close family and friends but what if I sell a figurative piece to someone and they use the image in the same way.

Do I still have copyright over the image even if they have purchased the original?

Carolyn

[Claudemir Bonfim]

Originally Posted by Carolyn Bannister

Do i still have copyright over the image even if they have purchased the original?

Yes, you do! Unless you sell it!

[Jeff Fuchs]

I believe this question has been tested in many court cases, and the press is protected by the constitution in ways that artists are not.

High courts have stated that freedom of the press cannot be maintained if they cannot publish pictures of news events.

Our Founding Fathers hotly debated the inclusion of Freedom of the Arts in the Constitution, but many of them felt that Copley had portrayed them in a less than flattering manner, and dropped this item from the Bill of Rights, just to spite him.

[Steven Sweeney]

Newsworthiness is the trump card.

Even civil rights privacy interests are subordinate to it.