Releases for photographs

[Karsten Wade]

On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 03:44:37PM -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> 
> One of the main purposes of this discussion is to find out to what
> extent *not* allowing remixing of that content affects the community's
> satisfaction with it.  Thus far, I don't detect any upswelling of
> dissatisfaction with limiting re-use in the context of photographs of
> people.  What were your thoughts about that particular issue?

Paul, I took a very long time to come to the decision to relicense all
my blog content (backward, forward) under a free content license.
(Not quite ready to put on a CC BY SA tattoo to declare my very
existence as free content, but this thread tempts me.)

My lengthy contemplationk was specifically because of my feeling of a
personal relationship to the words that was different than other
works.  It's one thing to openly publish a personal journal, another
to say that anyone, anywhere, anytime can do what they want with the
content.

Now that we are talking about our personal image, body politics become
involved.  I think we need some time to let this sink in to our
consciousness.  I wonder if a lack of response on this topic is
because people haven't throught through the consequences in either
direction?

On one hand ...

People were *freaked out* when an ad company used Facebook's API to
pull user photos in to adverts, yet the terms of use for facebook.com
clearly gave the right to do that.

Right now we're all thinking of the positive uses of our personal
image.  Soon enough we'll all start thinking of the negative.
Meanwhile, we never know is the endless possibilities of truly freed
content.

On the other hand ...

When we chose non-free we forever close a road whose outcome we'll
never know, good and bad.  We _could_ be more disturbed by our work
being used in a criminal racket or a missile guidance system, yet it's
our personal words and images where we feel the discomfort start.

If we're bold enough to allow the world of good and ill that comes
from our work on software, why aren't we bold enough to do the same
with our personal images?

Musing done with, now some specifics:

* For Fedora's purposes, having a blanket usage agreement would be a
  must.  We cannot return to photo subjects with each remix.  Fedora
  has so many ways it has to keep community trust with personal
  issues, I don't think adding one's personal image is that much more
  of a risk.  But if it goes wrong, it will be more visible than
  anything before and really, really, really piss people off.  I agree
  with Paul that should be sufficient deterrent.  Remember, image
  remixers, be respectful.

  Some kind of caveat or limit might be useful to create comfort, if
  it can be baked in without making the rest of the agreement useless.
  (For example, if a person could pull back the rights in the future,
  it's a ticking time bomb until a few disgruntled contributors demand
  theirs removed and cause havoc.)

  These are my pragmatic suggestions.  I still don't know that I'm
  comfortable with either choice, freedom v. perceived
  privacy/control.

* How does the situation work with respect to photographs taken in
  public?  If I take a shot of people on the street, do I need their
  release?  Is there a definition of where and under what conditions a
  release is needed?

  I ask because we've clearly all seen many photographs of people in
  the public put up on websites, where the subjects of the photos have
  no signed release.

Thanks - Karsten
-- 
name:  Karsten 'quaid' Wade, Sr. Community Gardener
team:                Red Hat Community Architecture 
uri:               http://TheOpenSourceWay.org/wiki
gpg:                                       AD0E0C41
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