stephen_jones4 Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 As I understand it, the publishing of Leica M style photography is now impossible, that is to say, actionable in law, in France (You need the signed permission of every person in the photograph, as well as permission from the owner of cars, boats, houses etc that appear). How long will it take for other European countries to catch up? What about the US? Is this a trend that can't be halted, and if so what will happen to photography (photojournalism in particular)? Finally, does anybody know of any publications/websites that track the changing interpretation of the law in this area? Anybody got any good news about all this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael_kastner Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 <!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"><html><head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Mozilla/4.73 [en] (Win95; U) [Netscape]"> <title>legality</title></head><body>This might be a little OT itself, but you can always try it out..."Courtroom stories ?"<p><a href="http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=006ejm">http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=006ejm</a><a href="http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=006ejm"></a><p>Things may have changed in the meantime, too...</body></html> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t_p1 Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 I'm living in Skandinavia and I got some nice photos from Paris last summer. Does this new law mean that I can't publish those photos even and only here? I wonder what Henri C-B thinks about this.. T Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellis_vener_photography Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 <B>WARNING FOR THE HUMOR IMPAIRED!</B> THE FOLLOWING IS SATIRE.<P>It's true. The Leica M has been outlawed in France. Photojournalists at Magnum say they have images of Iraqi, Saudi and Palestinian diplomats bribing French cabinet members before the new decrees were published, but cannot publish them as the images were made with, that is right, Leica rangefinder cameras. <P>Leica is seen as a pro -Israeli company since they helped some of their Jewish employees escape the Nazi regime in Germany. And also because Leica M cameras are thought of primarily as tools of photojournalists and the last thing these nations want is a free press,<P>Executives from Nikon and Canon have no comment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellis_vener_photography Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 real answer:<P> I think the prohibition is about <U><B>publishing without releases</U></B> (a release is a written consent form), not merely photographing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
al_kaplan1 Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 Even posting a picture on a website is publishing. Are the French giving up all the visuals in their news media? How will they keep people from smuggling newspapers from one European Union country to another? What about the pictures on Euro (money) bills? Crazy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stephen_jones4 Posted February 27, 2003 Author Share Posted February 27, 2003 Ellis - I did write "publishing" in the original question. I realise that it is only rarely unlawful to simply photograph for your own amusement. What I want to know is what this will mean for photojournalism and whether people feel this trend is unstoppable, or indeed, "right". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b_n_f Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 Like most things in Western Europe and the US, it is NOT the law that is the problem, it is the ENFORCEMENT of the law. One can drive around the BP in Paris, almost as fast as traffic will allow - one can drive 57kmh in a 50kmh area in Switzerland and pay a huge fine and maybe even loose driving permission.... btw In Milano a few years ago, a traffic camera snapped a local powerful politician with his girlfriend. The picture/ticket was mailed to his home...Now there are no more traffic radar cameras in Milano. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h._p. Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 The French as a nation are notoriously weird, although individual French people are often quite nice. I suspect this latest nonsense is something to do with the number of French politicians who have been pictured in Le Monde talking to people they shouldn't have. (Would moi mention Mitterand? Non!) In Britain the law has always been 'in public your face is public'. This is subject to the caveat that you can't be brought into disrepute in any way. Thus, if someone uses a picture of you, taken in the street, in an advertisement for, say, cough sweets, you'd have little recourse unless you could prove that saying you use cough sweets does something bad for your reputation. On the other hand, if your picture was used in an advertisement for a rude chat line, then you'd certainly have grounds for an action - if you could afford it. (British libel cases are not that easy to bring unless you have a few hundred thousand in the bank.) There is, however, a caveat to the caveat. If it is in the public interest for it to be known that a government minister was buying a call girl lunch, and the courts have invariably decided that it is, then the picture could and would be used. Of course, what they do in France has a nasty way of becoming EU law...<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
olivier_reichenbach Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 How long before this thread elicits some real nasty comments about the «French»? That being said, AFAIK, there is no LAW as such in France that governs the publishing and sale of photography. Over the last few years, there have been a number of famous cases won by owners of someting appearing in published photography, on a case by case basis, ruled at the sole discretion of the courts. This has created legal precedents on which subsequent actual and future cases will be judged. It's a mess. But the French photographers ARE reacting and asking for an actual law to prevent the abuses. They even have a petition signed. WARNING FOR THE «HUMOUROUS» CROWD: The following is just a question: Do you know that many pictures taken during Desert Storm have been subjected to censorship in the US, and many actually banned? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
todd frederick Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 This issue, in a more general sense, has been an irritant for me regarding my enjoyment of photography for many years...not simply regarding Leica M style photography either. More recently I go into a place and ask myself if I dare take any photos and keep a lookout for guards and rangers. I was once prohibited from entering a large warehouse style market with a camera. I can see a legitimate concern by people who may be photographed without consent and then to see their face in some magazine advertising condoms. That would bother me and is a genuine issue of privacy and misuse of your personal image. As a part of a news event, there is little means by which consent can be granted, since news events often don't offer the opportunity to sign releases, especially if bullets are whizzing by. When it comes to cars and buildings and nature's beauty, then we begin to enter the realm of the unreal. It still bothers me that, in my area of the world, there is a noted tree called The Lone Cypress at the coast near Pebble Beach Golf and Country Club. A few years back, Pebble Beach was bought by a Japanese firm who immediately trademarked that tree as the official Logo of the Pebble Beach Corporation, and posted signs prohibiting photographs. That is absurd. I have a real problem with people who think they can own any natural landmark. For me, such wonders as that tree, Half dome, Old Faithful, the White Cliffs of Dover, and such belong to the Spirits and not to any human entity. I take offense that anyone dare say I can not take a picture of natural wonders and do whatever I want with those photos. I would need only God's permission and not that of some corporate or governmental CEO! I know I can win this one, because money and power is god in our world, but at least that's how I feel. I often wonder if painters and sculptors face the same problems. Perhaps we can solve this problem by banning all visual arts completely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ray . Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 If that's humor Ellis, I'd hate to see when you're serious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robert_m_johnson Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 A cousin of mine that is obviously aware of my street photography was "shot" by a guy with a camera in a passing car while he was driving. He sad the guy "pulled a Bob Johnson" on him, he was freaked out for a few minutes. If you want to do street photography... "get a camera, get some balls, get some images!" :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew n.bra hrefhttp Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 Oliver R wrote:<P> <I>AFAIK, there is no LAW as such in France that governs the publishing and sale of photography</I><P> Not true - see the detailed article on this topic in the Magazine <B>"Black and White Photography (UK)", Issue #3, Aug/Sep 2001</B>. At pp.24-28 it discusses in detail the new French legislation (<B>"Presumption of Innocence and Rights of Victims"</B>) along with new applications of older French law (<B>"Article 9 of the French Civil Code"</B>) and goes on to make the case that these two peices of legislation, along with the courts application of them, has all but killed candid or street photography publication in France.<P> Of course you can still take the photos, you just cannont publish them (that includes posting on the WWW). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin Smith Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 I had the same feeling with the stupid "Lone Pine/Cypress". It is a dull completely cliched photo, which I had no intention of taking, but of course once I saw the sign I immediately took a shot of the cypress. Later I threw it away as being too dull. Robin Smith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markci Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 Interesting. The Pebble Beach Company web site tout the tree: <p><i> Clinging to seemingly bare rock, the Lone Cypress has served as inspiration for countless artists, photographers, poets and dreamers. </i> <p> I guess they should have added "...at least until we trademarked it and started telling people that we'd sue their ass off if they didn't cut it out!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jean_david_borges2 Posted February 28, 2003 Share Posted February 28, 2003 On a serious note, to-day's edition of Le Monde reports that a tribunal of high instance condemned the weekly news magazine Paris-Match for infringement of the right to privacy by publishing pictures of the 1999 cable car accident in the french Alps. Two men who lost a brother brought a suit against the magazine and they won. The verdict stated that Paris-Match overreached its right to inform. The pictures showed bodies strewned about the wreckage of the cable car. The verdict singled out photo manipulation to attract attention to the torn bodies of the victims and stated that this was characteristic of sensationalism by appealing to the emotions brought about by death and that this did not answer the need to inform. Le Monde feb 26, 2003 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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