[Editors] labeling people in photos

[Judith M Daniels]

Hi!

There are two (or three) different types of permissions that I know about:

1. The permission of the person who owns the rights to the photograph (usually the photographer but sometimes organizations or someone else buys the rights or partial rights to use the photo).
2. If there is a person or persons in a photo they own the rights to their image so you are supposed to get their permission when publishing a photo. 
3. An artist owns the rights to their work so if you take a photo of a piece of art you are supposed to get the permission of the artist to publish it.

There are many different variations to the law depending on whether the photo is going to be used for editorial, commercial, or arts purposes. Intellectual property is like a big dark hole. With social media, Flickr, Facebook etc. plenty of people
ignore these laws but they are taking a chance on getting sued (which doesn’t happen all that often but if it does it could be troublesome). It’s all a matter of risk and morality (in the case of swiping someone’s photo for your own use without paying and or say portraying someone in a bad light). 

Hope this is helpful. When in doubt I speak to the lawyers at MIT who are very helpful. 

Best,

Judy



On Jul 15, 2014, at 4:12 PM, Andrew Whitacre <awhit at MIT.EDU> wrote:

> A related question I'd ask is, would one need the permission of a) the subjects or b) the copyright holder?
> 
> Debbie, could you clarify: how might this case be different from, say, when I take a picture of event attendees (when I haven't heard the issue of subject permissions come up)?
> 
> Andrew Whitacre
> Communications Director
> cmsw.mit.edu | civic.mit.edu | gamelab.mit.edu
> Massachusetts Institute of Technology
> (617) 324-0490
> awhit at mit.edu
> 
> On Jul 15, 2014, at 4:02 PM, Deborah Ann Levey wrote:
> 
>> What is the current practice for using group photos online or in print when not everyone has given permission? The picture in question shows members of a 1993 departmental intramural team, and I wrote to all 10 people who were labeled. Four wrote back with long alumni updates, but six didn’t respond to several follow-up inquiries. The new person in charge here says we can’t post it on our future alumni news web page unless everyone gives permission, so I said I’d ask this group. 
>> 
>> Debbie
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