Legal or illegal? Morally wrong?

Here's a scenario. Is it illegal or ethically wrong?

You hired a photographer to photograph a huge event you put on every year in your small town. Your contract is a verbal between you

and said photographer. With nothing more than a promise to be there when the event begins and finish time was stated as being the

finale. Not much else.

Everything turns out fine. photographer is paid and you get your pictures.

Fast forward a year.... The town 30 miles away puts on a similar event ( 1st year)and sends a Facebook message to your photographer

asking if she can use the pictures taken at your event to promote her event.

He says sure and sends them to her. Did he have the right to do that? Isn't that illegal ? Or is it just ethically wrong?

<p>The question is placed this in the "Copyright" subsection - It’s almost certain that the Photographer has copyright of the images and he assumes that allows him to give the images to whomever he chooses – and in some way it does, but where this will likely get problematic is when the other town USES the images for promoting their event - so the question is not predominately about "Copyright", per se.</p>

<p>Using the images to promote their event will likely be considered "Commercial Use" in many jurisdictions in most Countries and if this is so then there would need to be release(s), (probably two types) to allow the images of the PEOPLE and maybe also the images of some STRUCTURES or OBJECTS in mages for advertising / commercial purposes.</p>

<p>However, as you mention that the original contract between the photographer and the organizers of the original event was ‘verbal’ (I assume meaning ‘aural/spoken’ and NOT ‘written’), then it is very likely that town doesn’t have releases in place to use the images to promote their next event, which in some way has probably already happened.</p>

<p>So I guess there are two ways of going about this: either the first town gets all antsy and kicks up a stink – but if that is the case, I suggest that they be very aware that they too are probably open to litigation – or at least someone else getting antsy with them.</p>

<p>The bottom line is - <strong>What's the big problem with the other town using the images?</strong></p>

<p>WW</p>

<p>Assuming you're in the U.S., the images belong to the photorapher in the absence of any contract saying otherwise. Therefore he can do pretty much what he wants with them.<br /><br />But I'm not sure how photos of Town A's even could be used to promote Town B's event. Is Town B going to say "we're having something that looks like this"? <br /><br />I'm guessing the photos are somewhat generic. If you're talking about a carnival, for example, and the photographer has pictures of people on carnival rides, that looks the same regardless of where it happens. Town B using carnival pictures from the Town A's photographer would be no different than if they got generic carnvial photos from a photographer in Town Z on the other side of the country. If the event is something more specific to the town, things could be different.<br /><br />WW is correct that model releases can be required for people seen photos put to commerical use. But using photos to promote an event does not necessarily constitute commercial use. If they are handed out to local newspapers, for example, as publicity photos, that is editorial use. And editorial use does not require a release.<br /><br />All that said, any ethical consideration is on the part of Town B, not the photographer. If Town B shows photos from Town A and claims they are from the Town B event, that would certainly be misleading.</p>

Seems a little strange but I have to agree that the

images are his and he can use them if he wishes for this

purpose