There is a difference between the subject of a photo and the owner of a photo. The question the poster is asking has to do with who owns the photo. That's a copyright issue. The example of the TV judge has to do with the subject of the photo and that's a libel issue. It's two completely different issues. Using someone else's photo without permission will get you in violation of copyright laws and you can be sued by the owner of the photograph -- which is the photographer. In addition, if the subject of the photograph objects you can also get sued by them. And,, you open yourself up to liablility from the website owner from whom you pilfered the picture. Do yourself a favor and go buy and image for a $1 somewhere that won't in the long run cause you grief.
But what if I take someone else's image myself and then use it on my site? will I still get sued if I am the original photographer? IT
tke71709 , watch ur words ! if i have a good Disclaimer + iam not hosting the image on my own server >> then everything will be ok and lawyers won't be able to kill my smartness
I was curious of the same thing, so I looked around a bit and found the following on a forum, (can't guarantee it's accurate, but it sounds good to me, it was posted in 2001, but believe it is still relavant): <Original Poster> works for a newspaper as well as having published pictures for 25 years. The basic rules are: Taking a picture in a public place is generally always legal. But if that place is part of a secured emergency area like a police crime scene line or fire or a riot, you may get arrested for being where you shouldn't whether you're taking pictures or not. And not all street cops know the law, so you may wind up getting arrested anyway (it happens to news photographers who ARE acting legally about once a month in the US). If you are not using the picture to promote something (i.e. commercial use - advertisement, service, etc.) you can 'publish' a picture taken in a public place without permission (e.g. a release). Publishing includes the Web (my paper has a web site and runs some of the same pictures that run in the newspaper.) Certainly 'editorial' use - reporting on the state of the world - is generally protected. And editorial use can be extended to cover street photography (a la HCB, Winograd, Erwitt, et al) even if the 'event' being reported about is just a gesture or expression or moment. He goes on to talk about defamation of character issues, such as if you say something negative about a group of people, and show a picture of one person, that person may have some legal recourse if what you say is defamatory. (he gives a really good specific example) Also he says more about what is and is not 'commercial' use. The last thing he says really says it all(and yet says nothing all at once..): Final blanket caveat: the law is always being tweaked by rulings on new cases, new definitions, new technology (eg, the Web). So what is generally considered legal or illegal (or liable for civil action) may not be next week. Even more finally, you can always be sued for almost any reason if someone wants to, even if the law eventually proves to be in your favor. The original post can be found here: http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=002kze
^^ That sounds about right. Quick example: if you're taking pictures of a parade and someone doesn't want to be in it, too bad. But if you take someone's picture as part of a photo shoot or something, then you'd need the model release.
You could technically use the photo without a release for non-commercial purposes, ie editorial (news related), however, if you're the photographer then you should get a release from the subject. If in your example, a woman using a phone, then you probably are going to run into a problem. It's not a situation where you've got a bunch of recognizable people in a crowd -- that would be considered fair use. You've got a specific subject plus, if you're using a picture of a woman on the phone, the subject leads me to believe that it's for a commercial purpose. And, if you want pictures of people on phones, there's tons of stock photography images of just that, so do yourself a favor and buy one.
Good point, here is a link to a thread with a ton of stock photo sites: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=179742