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 p.1 #19 · Approach to photographing people in the street | |
johnvanr wrote:
In my case, I'm sure that some of those taking part in the fascist demo in Vienna wouldn't be happy seeing their faces show up anywhere in that context, but I'm dying to submit them to Alamy. Question, for nitpickers, is whether my submission to Alamy constitutes publication or whether only licensing the image from Alamy and then publishing it in a news/media outlet constitutes publication.
Isn't participation in a public event one of the exemptions for expectation of privacy? I mean, you're protesting in a public gathering and the whole point of such a public demonstration is to spread the message through various means of communication. Therefore it would be expected that images/video will be recorded and later published, editorially, about the demonstration.
Bounce it off Alamy and see what they say? That said, they might be more interested in covering their own risk and not necessarily yours. But a good agency theoretically would want to protect their contributors as otherwise no one would eventually want to work with them.
Again, proper legal advice for your jurisdiction should be obtained, but from what I recall in the past, appearance of an image on a website could be considered 'published.' Privacy laws might/should also state whether posting an image of an identifiable person on a publicly accessible website constitutes a violation of privacy.
Sale/use of the image by a third party is another matter and potentially presents other risks. At least in the US/Canada there is a distinction between editorial and commercial use. If it's editorial/news use, it's not necessary to obtain permission from the person. But how that photo is used editorially can also matter. If it is used out of context, for example to illustrate a concept that potentially may damage that person's reputation, they may then sue. This happened to the newspaper I worked at when an archived photo, a documentary/environmental portrait of a person photographed by one of the staff photographers, was used to illustrate a concept. I don't recall the exact use case, but for example, to illustrate depression or a mental illness. And that wasn't why that person was originally photographed. I think it was also compounded because it was a younger person, possibly a teenager. The problem was that the page editor doing the layout, likely on a deadline, grabbed the first 'good' photo they found in the paper's archive without understanding or consideration for the implications of out of context use. They probably thought, 'we shot it, we own it, we can do whatever we want with it.' From what I recall, the paper either settled or lost, but it definitely resulted in very clear internal image use policy.
My point here is that a participant in a fascist demonstration might have a different opinion about what constitutes defamatory out of context editorial use than you or me. Even if they are ultimately legally wrong, they may still initiate legal proceedings. For individuals or groups with resources, this could even be intentional to 'punish' their perceived adversaries by forcing them to spend money on a legal defence.
A challenge of distributing through an Agency like Alamy is you don't control who images are sold to and their ultimate use. A buyer could misrepresent their intended use. And naturally they should be sued rather than the agency or the photographer, but it could be possible that the agency and/or photographer are still pulled into such a lawsuit. The TOU/contract between you and the agency should indicate the agency's responsibilities in such situations.
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Approach to photographing people in the street
