If any of you had pictures taken by some guy for "women of dragoncon"

[lasarigue.livejournal.com]

Ladies,if you were at dragoncon and some guy asked to take a picture for "women of dragoncon" you might want to see if you're on his site (http://smigrod.smugmug.com/Events/10...9_DUwSm#P-1-25) and give him an earfull--he's making a profit off your image without having you sign a model release.

Comments

[wildflowerz.livejournal.com]

It looks like you can't actually buy them. If you click "buy" there are no photos available. My guess is that it's a program he's using and it's automatically adding a "buy" button. If you're on there, it'd be good to keep tabs on it and make sure it doesn't change, though. :)

[noelleleithe.livejournal.com]

He commented after several other people with prices and such, though. Looks more like he does intend to sell them but the site isn't set up properly.

[greycoupon.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure he has done this in previous years or something similar.

[tertiumquid.livejournal.com]

He's also selling a book of pics from DC: http://bit.ly/rQjSG

[newki.livejournal.com]

I'm not condoning what this guy is doing but he may not need a model release. In previous years, the fine print on the back of the D*C badge was basically a generic consent form to be videotaped or photographed and used in all media. I'm not sure if they tightened up the wording of that this year.

That being said, my group was photographed by a mainstream media photographer and we had to have the 'consent waiver' in the first picture.

Unless this guy got a really great shot, I can't see him making too much money off of it. D*C is one of the most publicly photographed events of the year, and you can probably find the same shot (or better) on the web for free. Maxim is featuring the Girls of DragonCon (http://www.maxim.com/girls/girls-of-maxim/84060/girls-dragon-con-part-1.html) on their site and I heard that Hustler magazine had a photographer there as well.

[feuervogel]

The language on the badge applies *only* to official D*C media, advertisements, etc. It does not apply to consent for any random congoer to take your picture and sell it.

[spiritchaser1.livejournal.com]

You are correct, newki.

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/jillymcjillerson/3915204981/)

[ninepointfivemm.livejournal.com]

Is Maxim selling their likeness? Not as far as I know.

He also took photos of people who were not, in any capacity, Dragoncon members. I have a photograph in there (You can't see my face, as I'm wearing a mask), that I'm pretty sure was taken during the parade. It is entirely possible that he wasn't even at Dragoncon.

He might be able to squeak by because I'm pretty sure they were taken in a public place, but that law is iffy. The vast majority of these photos were taken so that you can tell who the person is. Generally, a model release is required in these cases, because he is selling a person's image without their permission.

Let's not even get into another whole can of worms by selling photographs of copyrighted characters.

[amyth315.livejournal.com]

I tried to buy a picture I found of my daughter. It didn't work. You can't download them for yourself either. Tried that too! So, I guess unless you contact him directly, I guess they're pretty secure.

[sylphon.livejournal.com]

Actually, you can download it, it's just using a javascript blocker (one of the least secure methods for this purpose), once the message pops up, it still allows you to right click and save, depending on the browser.

[achbarr.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing

[oropher-777.livejournal.com]

Holy crap! He's got a picture of my underage daughter on there!

[ninepointfivemm.livejournal.com]

This is why model releases are a good idea!

[xochitl.livejournal.com]

Wait... wow, I'm on there and I wasn't even in costume.

[guen-the-cat.livejournal.com]

I'm currently working with a production company filming a documentary about Rennies. And it has been explained to our crew several times that the legalese on the tickets, which is standard for just about any event, covers our production and the only releases required were for the interviews we conducted. Granted, we had to ask permission to be there and film, but when we did, we had fairly free reign.

Now, that said, anyone who was filmed and doesn't wish to be part of the production needs only to send in a request to be blurred out and we honor that request. I am not a producer so I don't know if that means we Have to, or if we do because we're honest and don't want any negativity attached to the project. But we are not required to post Anything about who we are and where to contact us should someone not want to be filmed because of the legalese on the tickets.

[everyinchofme.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but there's a big difference between someone who's barely recognizable in a shot, and the "principal" or "featured" figure.

You also secured permission from the event, which this guy obviously didn't.

[upscumbag.livejournal.com]

Any sort of screen-capturing software will be good enough to save any photo from that site. SPX Instant Screen Capture, for example, works just fine for situations like this.

[xochitl.livejournal.com]

Or the ScreenGrab add-on to FireFox!

[hmrpotter.livejournal.com]

I hope you don't mind if I re-post this on my FB; I'm sure there aer people on my flist who would like the option to complain or not complain, at the very least. Thanks for posting!

[musicboxwaltz.livejournal.com]

YES i heard about this man! he took my photo, and i had no clue he was making a profit, this has got to be put to a stop.
has anyone heard back from him?

[everyinchofme.livejournal.com]

Message him with the link to the photo and tell him if he doesn't remove it you'll take legal action. Legally, if he refuses to remove it, he is setting himself up for a class-action lawsuit.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, at various points in the past I have offered print-on-demand services for my photos. Where do you draw the line between me selling photos, and you printing photos by way of a service that I provide? That is, if you download the photo, take it to Kinkos, and pay them to print it, no one has broken the law. But if you DON'T download the photo, and ask me to print it for you, there's a good chance that I have broken the law.

[everyinchofme.livejournal.com]

Depends on what you're doing with the photos...

The problem is normally when someone goes to profit from the sale of the photo--particularly selling someone's likeness. If you don't have a signed release form from the model stating you can do this (not all releases detail this), then there's a problem as you have no legal documentation saying you can profit from the featured person in the photo.

And actually if the person downloads your photo, and prints it themselves w/o your permission then they're violating your copyright.

At the same time, news outlets don't need to get such papers because it's for 'editorial' purposes.

[plastisine.livejournal.com]

*sigh* ..figures the one picture of me I find is on something like that. e_e Hooray for the PrntScrn button! ..and you know..strangely enough, that character is male. And I had on a binder. GJ GUY!

[kira29.livejournal.com]

He's recently posted a comment to take down pics in response to comments and says he's disabled the buy button.

[meaninglesscog.livejournal.com]

He appears to have locked that page down. Need a password to go there now.

[sushithegreat.livejournal.com]

Classy.

[amyth315.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I went to show my daughter... now you need a password... go figure!

[kira29.livejournal.com]

Try the page again. Its working for me at least if you still want to show her the pic.

[materpenitentia.livejournal.com]

He was an asshole when he took my picture. The picture turned out really bad, because my knuckles were white around my sword and my face looked like I wanted to hit him. He is the only person that took my photo out of hundreds that I really despised and wanted to stalk off but there were other people taking my picture at the time so I looked towards them instead. Man that guy really pissed my off and that was at the con. I do model jobs and will pose how they want but this guy was just bloody irritating.

[mir280.livejournal.com]

There seems to be a password to get into the site now....

[datavortex.livejournal.com]

What a jerk.

[aila-chan.livejournal.com]

Ah! I remember that dude! He asked for my picture and started asking I do all these weird poses. He freaked me the fuck out. Only photographer the whole con I got weird vibes for. I can't see if he's selling my picture now that the site is password protected. He got me when I was cosplaying American McGee's Alice.

[kira29.livejournal.com]

Try it again. I just got on w/o any problem or password needed.