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> McLauchlan, Kevin wrote:
>
> I understand that makers of films/videos/printed mass media are
> supposed to get a signed waiver before using someone's recognizable
> image in a published work. There's some fair-use doctrine that might
> protect purveyors of news... or I could be wrong on that...
>
> ***
> A company I once worked at used Albert Einstein's image to promote
it's
> brilliant new medical equipment; they were promptly sued by Einstein's
> heirs who own the rights. Also, Fred Astair's heirs have the rights to
his
> image. It is always best to check before you use an image, especially
> those iconic ones.
Did it seem to make a difference, to the success of that lawsuit,
whether your company had used a photographic image or one processed from
a photo?
As opposed to a merely suggestive likeness?
Around my city, dozens of companies, big and small, use cartoonish
"Einsteins" as mascots or to promote whatever "ingenious" goods or
services they are selling (including things like Math tutoring, repair
services, etc.).
In my own case, I'm talking about something in-between a photo (or
posterized photo) and a cartoon. That is, following a few classes at
the local college, I took some pencils and charcoal and drew my
interpretations of some fellow employees, friends, family... Some of
the co-workers liked them enough to use scans of the sketches in place
of their company mug-shots on the internal website, mail/contact list,
etc.
I sorta enjoy doing it, for the process and challenge but there's not
much talent involved, so unless I'm drawing from life or photo-of-life,
I can't make a lifelike sketch of something that exists only in my head
- they come out looking vacant and bland like Barbie and Ken dolls.
Similarly, I'm doing some sketches of singles, pairs, small groups of
people that I might photograph in a street, park, or other public
setting. Faces watching a ball game, mom fussing with child in
stroller, that sort of thing.
So I might like to use such sketches on websites that have nothing to do
with the people who were the nominal subjects. Decoration,
illustration, whatever.
Let's put it another way: If a website displayed a pencil sketch that
resembled you enough that (say) a friend had drawn your attention to it
("Izzat you?! It looks like you!)", when you knew you'd never agreed to
be photographed or to sit for a portrait, would you be contacting your
lawyer?
Some would suggest that it's more important what the lawyer thinks, but
I wouldn't care to be in the position of gratuitously offending
people... and less so if they could successfully sue me. :-)
Do all stock photos, in those vast online and CD repositories that
include recognizable people, have signed waivers behind them?
Are there situations - notably everyday public ones (not newsworthy) -
where people who are not celebrities are fair game to be used as photo
subjects?
How about the related situation where they are simply incidental to a
photo of somebody else or of an object (perhaps architectural) of
interest?
Now, with all that in mind, note that it wouldn't even be the actual
photos featured (or more likely not even featured, but used as
decoration) on (say) my website (that doesn't exist yet, by the way). It
would be hand-drawn pencil representations of faces and forms from such
photos.
"Hey, that looks a lot like Maureen!... or Celine Dion, maybe... "
:-)
- Kevin
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