Image rights…
I only mention this because I’ve come across this recently. Someone who recently posed for me as part of a portrait set then refused to allow me to publish the image on my Flickr account. I didn’t mind deleting the image at the time because this person seemed particularly concerned about having their image floating about the Internet and I didn’t intend to sell the image for any commercial usage but the request then started bugging me… Did this person really have the right to ask me that? And what were my rights over the image I took and over the low-res copy of the image that I gave to this person?
On the whole, people in France seem to be somewhat jumpy about having their image taken and most especially about having their image published, whether that be in a commercial or non-commercial context. More often than not when I approach a stranger in the street to ask if I may take their picture I’m met with a suspicious question, why?, what for? or who are you? and as I flounder to explain that this person, in this context with that fabulous hat would simply make a great image then the moment is lost and the picture made worthless anyway (perhaps I just look like an untrustworthy character).
This suspicion has been tranformed into legislation and a very strong notion of the right to privacy. In the text of French law you can find that
Toute personne dispose sur son image, partie intégrante de sa personnalité, d’un droit exclusif qui lui permet de s’opposer à sa reproduction sans son autorisation expresse et spéciale, de sorte que chacun a la possibilité de déterminer l’usage qui peut en être fait en choisissant notamment le support qu’il estime adapté à son éventuelle diffusion. Source Educnet
Basically that any person, who appears on any image and who is recognisable in that image retains sole control over their apperance in that image and can enforce the right to determine if and under which conditions their image will be made publically available (within the limits of free speech of course).
In the United Kingdom, where I am from, I always thought that there was no notion of personal image rights as such and regardless of whether the subject grants rights to a photographer, it does not mean the subject can demand the physical media from the photographer. The image always remains the property of the photographer. And that the subject has very few rights over his or her own image taken in a public place with no blantant harassement or invasion of privacy (long angle lens photography through windows and so on).
But apparently laws are changing…
The Data Protection Act could soon be interpreted as expending an individual’s right over the processing and publication of their image and Anti-Terrorist laws are making public photography a bit of a minefield. No-one is entirely sure where to tread.
It has long been the norm that model release forms are required for any commercial licensing of an image and the subject can choose where and how their image is exploited. All very reasonable of course but should this really extend to photos taken during public events in public places? The general advice to photographers now is to get a written release whenever possible in order to prevent legal attacks on their work. But where could this lead to? Could I face a hefty fine or the destruction of one of my images because an isolated and recognisable stranger in the crowd decides to enforce his or her rights over that image and because I failed to secure hundreds of release signatures?
I find this a bit of a shame. I don’t belive that photography is a crime and I think that suspicion and a fear of prosecution could soon make street photography virtually impossible. Cartier-Bresson said that to photograph was to live and that
It is through living that we discover ourselves, at the same time as we discover the world around us.
If we lose the right to freely photograph the world around us then we effectively lose the right to document our own lives and to explore our own vision of our place in that world. As far as my particular portrait photo is concerned I do have the right to own that image but not now to diffuse it in any way, commercially or otherwise. I can’t share what I saw and what I chose to immortalise on film. It’s just as well then that I sliced up the negative in a frustrated and somewhat sulky rage…
