Mitch.Conner said:
ReggieABrown said:
cayenne said:
privatebydesign said:
Memdroid said:
Street photography is about socializing and absolutely not about taking sneaky pictures. You are no paparazzi. You have to interact with the subjects, joke around, hear their stories, get to know them a little and be a part of it.
No, for you street photography is about socializing, for many others it isn't. For many the thought of interacting with the subject completely destroys any authenticity to their work, and to others being in peoples faces is what the genre is about. 'Street photography' can be pretty much anything to anybody and covers the broadest range of self imposed criteria and techniques.
But if you are shooting that way, and not getting any signed releases...what use is it anyway? I mean..you can't sell it. Ok, possibly for editorial use, but still....if you're shooting street for $$...you're gonna need to be getting releases too, in which case you will have to interact with the subject(s)....and hence, the no more "sneaky" part of the equation..
I may be wrong, but I don't think you have to have a release when you're photographing someone on a "public" street.
There have been photographers that's been sued for selling their street photography that included subjects/people that didn't want to be in the pic, but none of those suits stood up in court because the images were taking on a "public" street.
I believe the reason street photographers (me included) like to be incognito is so they can catch people in their natural habitat being normal; being themselves in the raw. When people see someone with a camera pointing at them, they tend to tense up and act different.
I'm assuming that the court discussed whether there was an expectation of privacy or not in these cases? Do you have case citations so I can read these?
EDIT: Nevermind. I found some.
Privacy law is a potentially thorny (and often misunderstood) topic.
The "reasonable expectation of privacy" stuff (which is only one element of what you need to show to establish a breach of privacy) comes up in the UK/Europe (see the Naomi Campbell case, the Max Mosely case, etc, etc), but is relatively new thing (at least in the UK, I'm less sure about Europe). It represents a particular development of the common law about misuse of confidential information (again, at least in the UK) prompted by obligations arising under a European Union treaty on human rights.
In many other places, eg the US (I'm all but certain) and Australia, there is no general law about breach of privacy. You have to find some other basis to try to make a claim. Misuse of confidential information is often the most likely candidate, but there will be little chance of success if the relevant conduct could be seen from a public place or probably even just from a private place. (OK, to be technical: in Australia there are a couple of cases which have found there is a general law about breach of privacy: see Gross v Purvis (in Queensland), Jane Doe v Australian Broadcasting Corporation (in Victoria). However no appellate level court has yet run with it, despite having an opportunity to do so: eg Giller v Procopets (in Victoria). In Procopets, a video was made of people in a bedroom, and that was held to be confidential information. That wasn't just because it occurred in a bedroom though, it was also due to the nature of the conduct and the relationship between the plaintiff and the person who took the video.)
As for the issue of model releases, the law isn't necessarily the same from country to country. In Australia - and as far as I know in the UK, Europe and the US - there is no general requirement for them, regardless of what use you make of the photo. Still, in some situations it may be sensible to get one to avoid potential trouble, eg to avoid a claim for misuse of confidential information or, in the UK/Europe, a claim for breach of privacy.
Another type of claim which can come up, and which a model release might avoid, is a trade practices claim (eg passing off; in Australia, also misleading and deceptive conduct). The issue in these cases is usually whether the way the photo is used (eg in advertising a product) implies the person in the photo endorses the product. If it does, the person in the photo may have a claim (assuming no release was obtained) essentially on the basis their reputation is being misused by giving consumers the impression the person endorses the product or supports the manufacturer or whatever, when that isn't true. Generally speaking, it's more likely to be a problem if the person in the photo is famous, as consumers are more likely to assume that a famous person in a photo has agreed to be in it and agreed to the photo being used in the way it is being used.
That all assumes you were not trespassing when you took the photo. If you were trespassing when you took it, that could well cause you a problem (I'll leave it at that!).
