selling peoples photos

M

matn53

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mat
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Hi,

I'm wanting to start taking pictures of people at public events and offer them the opportunity to purchase the photo or prints of he photo online. Can anyone tell me if there are any legal implications of selling photos of people online, assuming you can demonstrate that the person purchasing the photo is the person you took the photo of?

m
 
what do you mean by 'public events'? You'll find that most events, even if open to the public, are not atually in public places. On that basis you may need permission to operate a commercial venture there. There may also be an issue with you taking pics of people.
 
What kind of event are you talking about and who would you be taking pictures of?
 
Sounds very sinister.
What kind of people ?
Where will you take them ?
Why are you taking them ?
What colour underwear will you be using ?
Will you take then in a month with a "U" in it ?

...these are questions that must be addressed before you start " taking pictures !"
 
Hi M

I think the only way you could really do this is to ask the people first as these days they can get quite funny about it

s
 
All depends on the event, and the organisers.

I go to lots of rallys (car, not protest!) - no restrictions on what I can do with my photos from the events. Some rallies have restrictions on commercial use of video, as they have signed the rights to a particular company. Some may even do the same with images...

Best advice is to ask the organisers of the events in advance, and see if there are any restrictions in place.
 
matn53 said:
Hi,

I'm wanting to start taking pictures of people at public events and offer them the opportunity to purchase the photo or prints of he photo online. Can anyone tell me if there are any legal implications of selling photos of people online, assuming you can demonstrate that the person purchasing the photo is the person you took the photo of?

m
Click to expand...

Some thoughts.....
If you are going to take pictures of individuals or groups and then offer them for sale to them only, then it is not a problem, however if you are going to be taking pictures of people at events and sell them to anyone then I would say you would need a model release or you could find yourself being sued...

The other issue is if you are going to an event with the view of canvassing for work i.e do you want your picture taken etc then the event organisers may chuck you out if you have not approached them first.

The third issue if you were to sell online how would you know you were selling to the person in the image ?? far better to take their details at the time and contact them afterwards via email etc with maybe a passworded gallery link.
 
A model release is only needed if the image is being used commercially, to advertise a product for example. In fact model releases aren't needed in the UK at all (legally) but are expected contractually.

But perhaps the point still to be answered is what kind of event and who the pictures are of. If it's almost candid shots of Joe Public wandering around a fun day in the local park then I don't think they'd sell very well. If it's runners at a 10k or something like that you could do pretty well provided you got the rights to shoot and therefore the promotion by the event organiser.
 
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