[TrooperUK]

Hi, I don't know if this is the right place to post this but for anyone living in the UK, it might be of interest.



It's a petition to the Government to clarify the laws surrounding photography in public places.



Petition to: clarify the laws surrounding photography in public places.



Through history, we have documented the world around us, whether through written word, art or photography.

Photography in particular has provided fantastic insights into the past and present, and is a hobby enjoyed by millions of people worldwide.

But today, it's becoming increasingly difficult to take photos of our surroundings, particularly in cities like London.

In recent years, the price divide between professional and consumer equipment has blurred, and it's quite common these days to see amateurs and hobbyists carrying around tripods, SLR cameras and a backpack full of equipment.

Yet, we are constantly harrassed by security guards and police officers in the name of preventing terrorism. They seem to be operating under a different interpretation of the law to the rest of us, believing that somehow the length of your lens, or size of your camera is relevant.

We would like clarification by the goverment on the law regarding photography of buildings and landmarks from public locations.

[Charlotte]

There's an excellent article on the law + photography in the February '08 issue (#69) of Digital Camera Mag, covering all aspects of shooting photography in public + also what you can + can't legally do with the photo's. It includes info on photographing children (in public and private), model/property release forms, copyright + more. It's a must-read article, as it raises issues which a lot of amateurs will not think to investigate but which could mean the difference between (inadvertently) breaking or keeping to the law.

As for a petition, TrooperUK, I do think it's time the gvt. openly clarified the laws, which are indeed vague to say the least, but can't help fearing that in pre-empting a public reaction from them, they will enforce laws which are even more restricting for the genuine photographer

PS The article I mention also covers your question on photography of buildings and landmarks from public locations.

[BigRich]

This winds me up, I'm a security officer myself and had the unfortunate task of moving people on with cameras.

Many shopping centres have copyright to worry about, think of it like this: you see someone take a photo with body shop in the background and it ends up in an advert for Boots the chemist a rival. Instant Copyright violation. I had to move on everyone, video cameras, mobile phones and everything between. Its par for the course now.

As for terrorism thats a load of rubbish when you have Google Earth piping virtually live sat images of every corner of the planet right into your living room. In a crowd of people i'd be more worried of a terrorist with a small easily concealable compact camera than some chap with a DSLR.

Police hassling DSLR users they want to watch the ones with mobiles and compacts first.

[orangepeel]

Originally Posted by BigRich

Many shopping centres have copyright to worry about, think of it like this: you see someone take a photo with body shop in the background and it ends up in an advert for Boots the chemist a rival. Instant Copyright violation. I had to move on everyone, video cameras, mobile phones and everything between. Its par for the course now.

This has come up in a book I'm reading atm - I recommend it to every one of us content creators.

Movies have been held up in court because a scene happend to have a store front or some guys sculpture in the background... it's all gotten rather insane. We'd probably be breaking the law if we sold images that had recognisable brands in them - this can even include architechture!

The book is called "The Future Of Ideas" by Lawrence Lessig. It's been released freely under the creative commons licence - You can download it from here: -
::: the future of ideas :::


Lawerence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford University and the book is more about copyright laws in general and how it affects creativity bot specifically about any creative aspect but it IS relevant to us.

[Charlotte]

DCM explains that if you photograph a building, or a shop with a logo on it, as a main subject within your shot, then there may well be copyright issues + you will need permission to shoot. If however "Boots" happens to be in the distant background but is obviously not the main point of focus, then you should be ok.

[orangepeel]

sadly, from what I've read so far that's not true.

the law says whether or not the item is recognisable to anyone - this will include the lawyers/accountants in Boots - to use your example...

“Ten years ago,” Guggenheim explains, “if incidental artwork . . . was
recognized by a common person,” then you would have to clear its copyright.
Today, things are very different. Now “if any piece of artwork is recognizable
by anybody . . . then you have to clear the rights of that and pay” to
use the work. “[A]lmost every piece of artwork, any piece of furniture, or
sculpture, has to be cleared before you can use it.”1



1 Telephone interview with Davis Guggenheim, November 15, 2000. The law on the
books in this area (as distinct from what directors and lawyers working for directors think)
is “by no means certain.” See Melville B. Nimmer and David Nimmer, “Nimmer on
Copyright,” §13.05[D][3], at 13-222 (2001).

I should point out he's a US lawyer and they are probably discussing US law - however US copyright law has been exported all over the world but I couldn't really say exactly how relevant it is to the UK.

[Charlotte]

This area seems to be one of the vaguest + very open to debate. DMC provides an url to the UK Copyright Service website for more information. See this page in particular which sets out a provision for fair use of copyrighted material. I think if we didn't have a "fair use" provision, then we just wouldn't be allowed to do any street photography at all, and in fact may as well put our cameras away for good to gather dust

[orangepeel]

well that is rather the point.

Anyway, if you note the provisions where fair use is acceptable, none of it applies to what we tend to do.

We don't tend to keep our work private - most of us publish our stuff on websites. We rarely do it for educational reasons, and other than a few pro's like Bags, we aren't doing it for reporting reasons.

[Charlotte]

The important point to distinguish here is that fair use of copyrighted material is largely accepted for private use but not for commercial use, i.e. to make any money out of it. Displaying stuff on your personal website is a bit of a grey area + is more down to courtesy than law I think, since every single personal website cannot possibly be policed. A single use plus quoting/crediting the author may be often be accepted, depending on whether the author is a Mr Nice Guy or a git - and I think the author would have a hard time suing anyone for that - although this would relate more to text than to photo's. However, it is always safer + just plain courtesy to get permission first, and with photo's I think it's an 'honour among photographers' issue, except where a copyright notice is published alongside the photo specifically forbidding any use of it.

In any event - and back to the logo-in-the-background issue - if someone has displayed their copyrighted material in such a way that it is publicly accessible, i.e. published or on open display in a public place (as with signage), then they must expect fair use! The difficulty comes in assessing what "fair use" would include, which would in fact differ in various scenarios. Of course, in any case "fair use" specifically excludes reproducing it for profit, which is the main thing which copyright is there to protect.

Largely I think we have to use our noggin. I mean if you displayed someone else's photo on your personal website without permission, then yes the author would have something to complain about. But if you displayed a photo you took of your spouse which happened to have a Boots sign in the BG, then that would be ok. In the first instance, the other person's photo belongs to, duh, the other person. But your photo with the Boots logo in it belongs to you; yes, the Boots logo belongs to Boots, but as it is not the main subject, there should not be an issue. Now if it were a close-up photo of the Boots logo, then that would be a different story.

[orangepeel]

Sadly common sense and copyright law are not happy bedfellows. Look at music. It's considered fair use to convert a CD you bought to MP3 so you can listen to it on the move on an MP3 player. This is common sense.
Yet in reality we have content producers doing everything they can to stop this fair use. The copy protect CD's, they install rootkits on PC's, hell they even stop the CD's playing on a PC in the first place.

Likewise they tried, and failed, to stop VCR's because they saw this as an infringement on their copyright. Yet because of VCR's there blossomed a huge rental industry and those same content producers made even more money out of it.

Originally Posted by Charlotte

The important point to distinguish here is that fair use of copyrighted material is largely accepted for private use but not for commercial use, i.e. to make any money out of it. Displaying stuff on your personal website is a bit of a grey area + is more down to courtesy than law I think, since every single personal website cannot possibly be policed.

So some obscure law criminalises all of us? Even if we're not caught. This is right how?

Originally Posted by Charlotte

A single use plus quoting/crediting the author may be often be accepted, depending on whether the author is a Mr Nice Guy or a git - and I think the author would have a hard time suing anyone for that - although this would relate more to text than to photo's. However, it is always safer + just plain courtesy to get permission first, and with photo's I think it's an 'honour among photographers' issue, except where a copyright notice is published alongside the photo specifically forbidding any use of it.

Hmm, I think you're talking about something slightly different. That reads to me like you're talking about using others work lock stock. And I agree that should be protected. However my point is about incidental copyright infringement.

Originally Posted by Charlotte

In any event - and back to the logo-in-the-background issue - if someone has displayed their copyrighted material in such a way that it is publicly accessible, i.e. published or on open display in a public place (as with signage), then they must expect fair use!

See! There you go using common sense again! What you might expect and what is actually legal are different - sadly.

Originally Posted by Charlotte

The difficulty comes in assessing what "fair use" would include, which would in fact differ in various scenarios. Of course, in any case "fair use" specifically excludes reproducing it for profit, which is the main thing which copyright is there to protect.

My point, and the point of the book, is if this is in the background and not actually part of the "subject" why should any artist have to go through the hoops of getting permission? This is the stifling of creativity I'm talking about.

It's so much bloody hassle to get permission that you wonder if it's worth the bother.

Originally Posted by Charlotte

But if you displayed a photo you took of your spouse which happened to have a Boots sign in the BG, then that would be ok.

Which is where we diverge. It might seem ok but by the letter of the law it's not.

Sadly you mentioned "spouse" in that sentence so there is a good chance that's likely to be a private image and therfor probably perfectly OK. If however it was, for example, a street performer you where doing a promotional shoot for, then you are breaking copyright laws. Simple as.






That all said, you're absolutely correct that it's not likely to be a problem for most of us. As rank amatuers are so under the radar of the copyright enforcers that we can pretty much shoot a street scene with boots in the background without a second thought.

However the moment you try to cash in on YOUR work there are legal hurdles you must overcome just because the boots logo "happened" to be in the background.

This is where creativity is stifled. Do you have the time, money and inclination to write to companies and ask for permission to publish your work?

How is this not stifling your creativity?


As I say, read the book. He's so much better at these wordy things than me

[Charlotte]

Originally Posted by orangepeel

... Sadly you mentioned "spouse" in that sentence so there is a good chance that's likely to be a private image and therfor probably perfectly OK.

Exactly my point, so my use of "spouse" as my example wasn't "sad" at all

Originally Posted by orangepeel

... If however it was, for example, a street performer you where doing a promotional shoot for, then you are breaking copyright laws ...

So get 'creative' and blur it out

Much as I enjoy these discussions that you + I get locked into all of your other points are covered by what I've said already, so I won't start repeating myself. I don't think we disagree hugely on this topic.

[Charlotte]

OP, there is one other thing that occurs to me .................

I strongly advise that you exchange your book on copyright law from a US one to a UK one, as there are bound to be differences.