Air shows requiring a release

[MissionMan]

Quick question for people in the know. I posted a couple of fairly generic photos on a stock site just to see what happened.

One of the photos was taking in a public place (st kilda) of an air show that occurs during the grand prix.

I received the following notice: "This air show performance is like any other major production and is an issue of intellectual property, requiring a property release."

If the air show is conducted in a public area where no entry ticket has been provided with terms and conditions, and no markings are on the plane, how can this be subject to a property release?

Am I missing something here?

[Mark L]

Layman's view (and therefore possibly wrong).
You didn't purchase a ticket that has T&Cs. You're in public space. The planes where in public space.
Don't think you're missing anything.
Let them know what you think in strong terms, though it's obviously not worth the money to go to court about it.
Bully boys.
Let it be known in as many places as possible that event organisers are such control freaks that they don't want free publicity, that no one (other than them) is making money from. Probably won't change a thing.

[gbradtke]

i am interested in the outcome here.
Pretty cheeky to put something in front of people and expect them not to show the usual level of interest in it.
Maybe they need to start asking peoples permission first for creating distraction and making noise?

[arthurking83]

I'd write back to them asking for compensation for obstructing your photo of a perfectly clear blue sky taken whilst in the vicinity of the St Kilda area!
(explain to them that this obstruction has resulted in the loss of substantial sales on the stock site you use .. etc, etc)

[I @ M]

MM, who was behind the pulling down of the images and the notice?

If it was the stock site I guess they just assume that you were a paying customer of the GP and associated air show and therefore pulled the images and sent you the notice more to protect their backsides from possible future actions from the GP mob. Probably one of those "just in case" measures they use to make life easier for themselves, I'm going to guess that the stock site is from the good ole United States of Anxiety.

If someone from the GP mob complained, that would sound about right for them, they never let anyone stand between themselves an a dollar.

I like ^ Arthur's suggestion.

And ---- technically the planes are not in a public space, during an airshow, that space would become very heavily restricted air space and any member of the ( flying ) public entering that space would face heavy penalties from either a court of law or a heat seeking missile from an F16 or such like.

But yeah, generally it is legal to photograph private property from a public place but in this case it all sounds just like to much hard work to pursue it for the sake of a few photos.

Maybe it is in the stock sites T & Cs that any parts of a performance may not be posted without a release and they just apply it as a blanket measure. You did read the 356 pages of the T & Cs didn't you?

I would liken the scenario to one of a well known music group ( insert any name here ) doing a paying gig in Fed Up square and you photographing the performance from a nearby building and then trying to cash in on their intellectual property.

[ricktas]

As Andrew says, restricted Airspace is not public space and like any performance they could hold copyright over the actual performance. Just like stage shows.

Will be interested to see where this goes as well.

[MissionMan]

Chatted to a pilot and he said there are different kinda of restricted airspace. The one put in place for the Grand Prix is for safety purposes and there are no photo restrictions. He equated it to take photos of planes from public property outside an airport.

I'll try contact them back and see their response.

[Mark L]

And ---- technically the planes are not in a public space, during an airshow, that space would become very heavily restricted air space and any member of the ( flying ) public entering that space would face heavy penalties from either a court of law or a heat seeking missile from an F16 or such like.

As an aside and FWIW, all airspace around major cities is controlled airspace. The towers at major airports are in control of the movements in that controlled airspace. Doesn't stop people taking photos of planes around airports.
To my knowledge, only guvmint departments can have control over airspace.
Around places like Mudgee, it's all uncontrolled airspace, though pilots are still required to make certain radio calls on the local CTAF.
If a fire breaks out and aircraft are required to help, the area around the fire is then declared controlled airspace and any aircraft (Channel 9's helicopter) must ask permission to enter that airspace. Still doesn't stop someone on public land taking a photo of the firefighting aircraft in action.

[ricktas]

My guess is that as this is a 'stock' site, the issue is selling the images. Not about taking photos etc for private use. By selling the photos you are breaching the intellectual rights of those that own the rights to the actual display, co-ordinated event.

[Rosso1600]

Quick question for people in the know. I posted a couple of fairly generic photos on a stock site just to see what happened.

One of the photos was taking in a public place (st kilda) of an air show that occurs during the grand prix.

I received the following notice: "This air show performance is like any other major production and is an issue of intellectual property, requiring a property release."

If the air show is conducted in a public area where no entry ticket has been provided with terms and conditions, and no markings are on the plane, how can this be subject to a property release?

Am I missing something here?

The following is a brief outline of an in-depth article regarding the subject of intellectual property and other legal issues facing photographers, written by Andrew Nemeth BSc (Hons) LLB MTeach. http://photorights.4020.net/
Andrew says in his introduction:
In case you are wondering, I am a photographer and qualified solicitor (UNSW 1991) who worked for a short while at a large Sydney law firm, before leaving the profession in 1992 to find a more honest way to make a living. So the following is based on an (ex) practitioner's understanding of Intellectual Property and Privacy Law, and not just the usual Internet Hearsay.

The sub-title is: “Australian street photography legal issues” Written by Andrew Nemeth BSc (Hons) LLB MTeach

The following reasons explain why it is perfectly legal to take photographs without consent in this country:
(1) Our State and Federal constitutions lack a Bill of Rights. Therefore we have no guaranteed "right to privacy" in Australia, at least not with respect to photography.

(2) Federal and NSW Privacy legislation does not apply to occasional photos taken by individual photographers. (The Acts currently only regulate data acquisition by Government departments and large corporations.)

(3) In Aug 2005 the Commonwealth Attorney General remarked: "[…] for any society to function in a relatively free and open manner, there could not realistically be a requirement for all photographs to be taken with consent. If there were such restrictions, candid shots could never be taken[…]”.

“Isn’t it Illegal to publish a person’s photo on a website or other media without their consent?”

Only in Quebec or France. In every other country, including Australia, publication is fully legal, provided the following criteria are met:
(1) The pictures aren't defamatory;
(2) They aren't indecent, offensive or otherwise demean the people in them or;
(3) They aren't being used for a "commercial purpose"

As to the publication of your photographs on a website, Andrew says the following

What if you take photos of a private space, publish them, and are then contacted (threatened?) by the property owner, claiming you have no right to display or sell images of their land? Frankly, ignore them. They may be able to restrict you while the photos are being taken, but they cannot do anything once the images have been captured (unless of course the photos are defamatory or infringe trademarks, trade secrets etc.). As noted earlier there is no general right to privacy here, especially for publicly accessible areas.

Copyright?

Alongside ignorance about the Privacy Act(s), one of the commonest misconceptions about photography is that it can be prevented “due to copyright”. This is incorrect — no part of the Copyright Act prohibits any kind of photography! Copyright only applies to the published duplication of original works, such as books, paintings, dramatic works, prints, drawings, motion pictures, DVDs, audio recordings etc.

In Australia still-photographs of 3D objects such as performances, buildings, statues or interior spaces (and the people in them), generally cannot infringe copyright, as one-off images cannot reproduce a substantial enough portion of the original work. The only way to infringe copyright in these cases is to create a sufficiently similar 3D copy, or with respect to dramatic works, lengthy video recording

The full contents of his very informative article are here: http://photorights.4020.net/

Andrew has also co-produced a 2 page summary that can be downloaded from his website and printed out to carry with you.

The operative sentence here is “In Australia still photographs of 3D objects such as performances-----”
Which is exactly what your photograph was, “--- of a performance”.

[keith-killer]

Very useful info here in the post above. Thanks for posting that!

I presume he is referring to a stock site based in the USA, so they are subject to US laws and US way of doing business...
Such stock sites have contributors from around the world, but can not make every photo related to the laws in the country taken or the country is may be used in etc.. way too much work.
When is comes to aircraft, these websites have to be careful how they sell the photo for you (while taking most of the profit)/

You may want to add these photos to such stock photo websites as editorial. Each site has their own rules regarding editorial etc, but that seems to be the only way to get many 'publicly taken photos' onto the sites these days.

Reason being... they have probably been challenged before, so are playing it safe now. Most probably they would love to sell these photos for you, but the risk is just too great for them or you in the land of litigation at any cost, for any reason.

Oh, what kind of aircraft were they?