[Foundation-l] Celebrity pictures

Tue Aug 29 07:43:12 UTC 2006

Anthony wrote:

>On 8/28/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>  
>
>>Perhaps more significant than whether anyone has lost is whether any
>>such case has ever been filed.  Given that they are distributed for the
>>specific purpose of publicity there could be an implicit permission.
>>    
>>
>If you're using the image for the purposes of promoting the person.
>If, on the other hand, you're using the image to sell an encyclopedia
>article which portrays the person in a way which they don't want to be
>portrayed, then there probably isn't implicit permission.
>
I don't know if it's to "sell" an encyclopedia.  Lindsay Lohan would 
need to think she's pretty special if she believes a picture of her will 
make all the difference in encyclopedia sales.  Is she as self-absorbed 
as Paris Hilton?  Our use is transformative, and it in no way adversely 
affects the company's sales..  It would even be interesting to hear the 
companies comment on the function of publicity shots.

>Maybe I'm overly paranoid, but even here in the US where we have some
>very strong fair use and first amendment rights, I still wouldn't feel
>comfortable selling an encyclopedia with the current [[Lindsay Lohan]]
>article in it, without first receiving permission from the copyright
>holders of the images.
>(http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lindsay_Lohan&oldid=72480012
>in case it changes before this is read)
>
This may be a problem for the print version, and specific permissions 
should probably be sought when we get that far.  For the on-line 
verrsion however I have no problem with an active campaign to replace 
the fair use images with "free" ones.  It's clear that I'm more risk 
tolerant than you, but that doesn't mean there's such a wide gap between 
our views.

>Frankly I think that case could be probably be won by the museum on
>appeal, if they spent enough money fighting it.  
>
Yeah, Dillinger has been dead since 1934.

>Besides, there are
>always going to be crazy jurisdictions (like Indiana, apparently) with
>laws so out of touch with reasonableness that we just can't follow
>them.  
>
Developing policies to account for such extremes is playing to the 
lleast common denominator.

>As for relying on the copyright holder of the image finding the
>Wikipedia article "respectful", well, I just think that's a horrible
>thing for us to even have to consider.  Would Linsay Lohan (*) object
>to our portrayal of her in "Media spotlight"?  I don't know, and I
>don't care.
>
There's also the question of who owns the copyright.  I suspect it's the 
studio who sends out fan pics to admirers.

Ec