Ever heard of Portrait Rights?
Posted by
Ziwei
Posted On
Jul 27 2008 8:48 pm
You took a bunch of photos of random strangers on the street and decided to upload it to flickr thinking that you have exclusive rights to these photos and whoever’s portrait is in the photo has no right to complain as the photos is yours. Think again.
Enter the Portrait Rights.
Portrait Rights is a sort of copyright protection for an individual who’s portrait has been photographed without his permission. The details on Portrait Rights difference between countries but in some cases almos tnon-existent. In the United States, it seen that those who took or modified a photo holds a stronger right over the photo than the individuals who’s portrait is in it. Lawsuit such this one reported at International Herald Tribune happened from time to time but states court usually rules in the photographer’s favour. In Japan, the reverse is true. Japan’s Portrait Rights act or 肖像権 give the subject of the photo stronger right over whoever took the photograph. Danny has an article regarding Japan’s portrait rights act.
The subject of portrait rights is a difficult one. While the rights protect one’s portrait from begin used without their knowledge or permission, it also restrict photographer’s right to artistic expression. There are no clear definition over what’s right and what’s wrong and lawsuit disputes over portrait rights were usually judged on a case by case basics. However, if someone voice out their objection toward me taking their photo, I will have to respect that and simply keep the photo to myself or even delete it. But I believe I have the rights to take photos in public places and share these photos as long as its lawful (taking upskirt photo of ladies is obivously not lawful) and the privacy rights of the individual in the photo is begin observed by not releasing any form of information regarding the individual in the photo with their permission.
The portrait rights act does not just concern professional photographer today. With almost everyone owning a camera or a camera phone and having numerous means to publish photos to the internet, we need to recognise the fact that everyone holds certain right over the usage of their own portraits, taken with or without their knowledges. I’m pretty sure nobody wants to find their sleeping face taken while they are taking a nap on a train ride circulating on the net like these poor chaps on stomp.
I try to respect the portrait rights of individuals and uses the laughing man smiley from GITS to cover up the faces of those who happen to be in an embarrassing situation(such as snoring in a crowded train) when I took their photo.
Comments ( 0 )
France has a similar law. It is to do with privacy, and prevents the taking of pictures in public places that show people’s faces.
To the British law and mind, this is ridiculous, as when you are in public, you are in public — you can’t be in private.
Much of the best photography is “street” photography and involves taking informal situational portraits of ordinary people in daily activities. This is true for amateurs as well as professionals. It would be a shame for this genre to be lost because some spoilt celebs want to swank around in public and make money out of their faces.
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