Talk:Model release

Redirect
Liability waiver shouldn't redirect here, as a model release is only one specific form of liability waiver. When you sign a liability waiver before skydiving, is that a model release? No. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)


 * Liability waiver is now a standalone article. ~Kvng (talk) 15:57, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Required on Wikipedia
We should have a link to the policy for model releases in photos on WP, if any. -- Subsolar 02:05, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

WP is entirely editorial in the purest definitions. There is no ambiguity here. Therefore, no release is ever required of photos of recognizable people on WP. -- Dan Heller 22:04, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

All of my edits on this page remain, yet someone continues to remove the reference I make to the longer articles on my website on the subject (www.danheller.com/model-release), which is the result of considerable research. I suspect the reference removals are the work of the lawyer who replaced my references with links to his own site. I cannot afford to take the time to continually monitor this site because others use it to raise their own google rankings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Argv1 (talk • contribs) 06:11, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

?
Wikipedia’s stuff is used in many different jurisdictions. If someone posts a picture of you through your bedroom window and posts it to Flickr™, does that mean it’s free for all on Wikimedia commons? Isn’t there any “subject rights”?Jikybebna (talk) 19:05, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * No. Yes; see personality rights, privacy rights and the sources of this article.--Elvey(t•c) 06:18, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

modelsobserver.com links
This and other Wikipedias in other languages have been relentlessly spammed by anonymous IPs based in Israel (where the domain is registered) for many months. It's gotten sufficiently bad as to warrant addition to the spam blacklist and I have removed a number of these links in anticipation of blacklisting: Most, but not all, had been added by the site-owner.
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam (permanent link)
 * meta:Talk:Spam blacklist (permanent link)

If an established, high-volume editor sees value to the specific link I deleted from this article, please let me know and it can be evaluated for addition to the spam "whitelist" -- A. B. (talk • contribs) 02:26, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Understandability and general quality of the text in the article
The last lines of text in this article currently are:
 * Since most legal advisors now argue that any photo of a person for which a signed model release does not exist leaves a publisher susceptible to civil action, it cannot be argued that any "right to copy" inheres to such images. As a result, the thrust of current laws will gradually efface from public view all but commercial photographs (photographs commissioned to assist in the marketing of products) and so-called "news photographs," which have not historically been required to secure releases from their subjects but which bear the additional burden, should their legitimacy be legally challenged, of proving that the event photographed was "newsworthy" in nature.

In my opinion, language in encyclopedias should be clear and understandable (as far as the subject matter allows). The above text is unnecessary cumbersome. For example, nowhere in an encyclopedia should a phrase like "it cannot be argued that" be used. Anyway, a phrase that states that something cannot be argued is hardly ever factually true. Ask any debating club, and they will demonstrate that the point can be argued.

Furthermore, an encyclopedia should be hesitant to include predictions in its articles, such as "...the thrust of current laws will gradually efface from public view ...". Before Wikipedia can publish something like that, reliable sources must be available that prove :
 * That the thrust of current laws will afface from A to B
 * That this will happen gradually.

Of course, for this to be proved, it must be clear how "the thrust of current laws" is defined.

Furthermore, the use of the word now is problematic, because it might be true at the time this article was written, but in five years, the fraction of the legal advisors that argue this may have dropped below 50%, and then, we cannot maintain any longer that "most legal advisors now argue that ...".

I hope someone that knows more about model releases than I do can improve this text. Johan Lont (talk) 18:16, 12 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with you, even more strongly. This article is full of original research, and while that's generally acceptable for a new article, predictions are not. Even a strongly sourced article should not make non-deterministic predictions, but instead attribute various predictions to experts.  This ads absolutely nothing to the article in its current form, and I am changing it. 69.201.170.31 (talk) 22:53, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

List by country
This article omits a list of differences by country. I'm British and I'd never heard of Model Release until I found it on a US website. The US is perhaps the most litigious Western society and perhaps the need for Model Release is much lower or non-existent in most other countries. Not having a country by country section is a major omission.

The country by country section should indicate the need (if any) for Model Release when a photograph is taken in Country A but published in Country B, perhaps in the form of a table with A along one axis and B along the other. FreeFlow99 (talk) 10:31, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Dubious
If I'm not mistaken, noncommercial publication where no endorsement is implied, without a model release, is legal. At least in the US, if not everywhere.--Elvey(t•c) 03:51, 13 July 2015 (UTC)