I also don’t think that the monetary amount should have anything to do with it. If DiCorca was not able to counter sue or have legal fees awarded to him, then he is out that money. If he has a release, then the court case maybe doesn’t get brought in the first place.

I think that even though the law may protect you from needing a release in this situation, you may still face the cost of defending yourself in court against a lawsuit by selling a picture of someone that you did not obtain a release for, even if it is not for a “Commercial” purpose.

I am not sure I understand your point on Ed Greenberg not being a Rabbi or a moral philosopher. Those were my thoughts, not his. The law may allow you to do something that you shouldn’t. That is all I was trying to say.

- Ed Greenberg is an attorney, not a rabbi or moral philosopher
- This happened in NY NY - where Ed Greenberg lives and practices.
- This case involved hundreds of thousands of dollars

Personally I agree with Lawrence Lessig - the whole area of copyright law is outdated and needs re-writing. British copyright law (on which ours is based) was meant to promote creativity and commerce not inhibit them:

http://www.shootingbynumbers.com/?s=lessig

Ed Greenberg did say that selling prints without a model release should be okay, but as he said that would be covered under state laws and they could differ significantly.

That doesn’t however get around the issue of cultural sensitivity. I think that if I were the photographer in question, whether or not I was legally in the right to sell those prints, I would have stopped, attempted to buy them back or offered to donate a portion of the proceeds to a charity. Or better yet, maybe I would have found out if there could be an issue with using the image of an Orthodox Jewish man in the first place and would not have made the image public, no matter how good or evocative the image was.

To me, I think photographers in general are often too worried about their own rights while they think nothing about trampling all over the rights of others. Whatever happened to the Golden Rule in our society? Why is what we want and what benefits us more important that what someone else may want or not want to be done with their likeness? Even if the law allows it, why should we profit off of the use of someone elses likeness without their permission? Why do we feel entitled to in the first place?

Happy twenty-something Birthday!
-Dan Francis

Nussenzweig!

Big law case which seems to contradict what Ed Greenberg says towards the end of the first video or did I get it wrong?:

http://www.shootingbynumbers.com/?p=201

Probably a really off topic… but how did you do the phone interview in the Podcast? I saw your iphone out there, but how did you record the audio for publishing?

~John

Happy Birthday! Hope it is a great one.

—————————————— tony

Will you be so kind to describe me how to obtain the gradual transparency of the picture.
Imagine a horse which is jumping from the wall - his rear leggs are presque tramsparent, the bricks of the background are visible. The transparency lowers gradually - the head and the front leggs are practically not transparent, the background is not visible
I’ve the CS2/CS2PL

I’ll be very gratefull

Tristan from Warsaw