Topic: General legal use of photo's

Hi all, I've always wondered - lets say i take a photo of someone infront of a building. Someone else owns that building, am i still allowed to use this photo in print work? Am i allowed to sell the photo?

If i take a photo of people hussling down a busy street, am i allowed to use that/sell it? It has a whole bunch of people that might not neccesarily want to be in it. Does this mean you have to get permission from them all.


I think you get the general idea, im not sure how this works or what the limits are - maybe its a grey area.

Thanks.

It is a very grey area. In the US atleast I know it is, that is why they try to get a release form from every individual involved, or the opposite for anyone who doesn't want to be involved. A building however is different, as far as I know, any building or free standing building is public domain. But people is a hard one. I know television companies such as FOx and Comedy Central have almost everyone involved sign a release form, but MTV usually never does it for extremely large crowds. I'll go through my books and find a better answer for you unless someone else beats me to the punch.



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There are also tradmark considerations, take for instance something the image of the Empire Tradebuilding, could be trademarked is assicated with a product type, or service. such as postcards, teeshirts, etc... Trademark is tricky, and crops in unexpected areas like car photography, and product shots, and or anywhere trademarked characters (e.g. Micky Mouse) or logos are visible.


J. Stuart J.

Hmm yeh, i can see problems could come up. So what do you do just take the pictures you want and see what happens? I mean if you were starting a stock photography gallery you could be forever getting permission to use general stuff.

If i take a photo of a city outlay from a distance, surely i dont have to get permission from each and every building - including the empire tradebuilding.

I want to start getting into photography so i can take images to use in my own work, but its sounding like a big lot of trouble

This is a tricky area. Generally, there's safety in numbers, so to speak.

You can take a photo of a skyline and use it how you wish. However, when a single building is featured, it's highly recommended you get a property release, as buildings can be both copyrighted and trademarked. (Two very different things, by the way.) Now, you can take pictures of buildings, houses, whatever, all you want -- as long as you're standing on public property when you do it. Publishing it, however, outside an editorial context without permission can get you into trouble.

It's generally the same with people. If you take a picture of a person and he is reasonably identifiable either by appearance or circumstance, you'd better have a model release before trying to publish it. Again, you can take all the pictures of him you want as long as he's in public -- though there are points of ettiquette to be considered -- but publishing is different. And like with a skyline, crowds are generally safe.

This sort of thing can be a lot of trouble, yes. But so is getting sued, so it's better to be safe. I always try to get releases signed when I can. Besides, having the proper releases on a photo can increase its value when licensing it.

Dan Heller has some good stuff to say on the subject, by the way; I recommend reading it.

(By the way, I'm not a lawyer and I can be wrong sometimes.)

Thanks wes, that was a great post. I think i'll start with flowers and things that arent so grey and work my way up :P