Actually, I work for part of the New York Times and while the newspaper itself doesn't use model releases all the time - magazines and online properties owned by NYT that aren't news outlets MUST have model releases.
Even newspapers have been successfully sued when photos are released with inflammatory and inaccurate captions (such as a person sitting on a park bench with a caption about bums sleeping in parks). In the US (it does vary from country to country), you need a model release (and technically a property release) for almost every photo. Now, in practice, photographers are rarely sued (or even asked to take photos down) when they are published in galleries or personal blogs. The issues usually arise when photos are sold and published in magazines or other public consumption publications (advertisements for example). There are some exceptions based on photos taken in public places and at public events. However, these are poorly defined in the law and judges are notoriously inconsistent on rulings. Most judges take the side of the person photographed without permission, although there have been a few notable cases where judges sided with the photographer. One case that was on the side of the "photographer" actually damaged the image of photographers in the US. The judge ruled that it was ok for a man to use a cell photo to secretly take upskirt photos of women in a mall because the mall was a public place. I haven't heard yet about the appeal but I hope this one is overturned because it has drastic ramifications for privacy expectations for all of us. On 1/18/11 7:09 AM, "Paul Stenquist" <pnstenqu...@comcast.net> wrote: > You definitely don't need a model release for a picture taken in public and > published in a gallery , a newspaper or a magazine. Thousands of legal > precedents have affirmed that. Even the NY Times, which is hyper cautious > doesn't require that. I shot dozens of people for them at the dream cruise. No > releases. Not even names on some of them. They were published both in the > paper and on a web blog. > Paul > > > On Jan 18, 2011, at 7:51 AM, Thibouille wrote: > >> Don't think so. >> If it is published, you need autorization IMO. >> >> 2011/1/18 Boris Liberman <bori...@gmail.com>: >>> On 1/18/2011 2:12 AM, Ann Sanfedele wrote: >>>> >>>> "It is the sole responsibility of the submitting photographer to obtain >>>> a written release >>>> from any _recognizable_ [emphasis mine] person in a submitted photo." >>> >>> Don't you have a rule/law in your country whereas if you take a picture of a >>> person in public and don't use it for profit/publicity/etc then you /don't >>> need/ to have a written release therefrom? >>> >>> I've a pic in there that shows faces... No problems this far. >>> >>> Boris >>> >>> -- >>> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >>> PDML@pdml.net >>> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >>> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >>> follow the directions. >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Thibault Massart aka Thibouille/Thibs >> ---------------------- >> Photo: K-7, Sigma 28/1.8 macro, FA50/1.4, DA40Ltd, K30/2.8, DA16-45, >> DA50-135, DA50-200, 360FGZ ... >> Laptop: Macbook 13" Unibody SnowLeo/Win7 >> Programing: Delphi 2009 >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> PDML@pdml.net >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow >> the directions. > > > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
