Mike Johnston wrote: >>I would think that it would depend where in the world you were. Here in the >>US there was no restrictions as long as you were on public property. After >>9/11, who knows.
> There are some restrictions > on publishing as well. There was a famous case a few years ago when the NY > Times magazine published a picture of a black man in a business suit in a > city cross walk and used it to illustrate a story about the black middle > class--the fellow sued, arguing that he was not a member of the middle class > but the upper class, and that he was not a representative of the article's > subject. I recall that one, but my recollection is that the suit was on slightly different grounds. The photo was a large cover shot on the Sunday NY Times Magazine of the guy striding down the street in a well-tailored suit carrying a briefcase and the cover carried a tag referring to a story inside about members of the emerging Black middle class ignoring the remaining problems of the poor, turning their backs on the ghetto, and the like. And his suit essentially claimed that he had done no such thing, that the juxtaposition misrepresented his views, and he was publicly embarrassed and defamed. He did win, and I think that was a correct decision. Sort of the equivalent of publishing a photo of carefree Mike Johnston walking down the street to illustrate a story about "Ax murderers going free" even though he was not an ax murderer. :) Of course, I also am going on memory, a memory that gets more feeble as the years go by, so I may not have all details right. :) Another suit I recall hearing about a while back -- the woman who appeared in Dorothea Lange's famous photo, "Migrant Mother" (PDML reference, p. 599), sued years later, because the photo made her look poor and hopelessly destitute but she had become successful and entered the middle class, etc., so she was embarrassed. I believe she lost that suit, and I think that was a correct decision since the photo was historically accurate. At any event, the moral is, be careful of how you use photos. :) - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
