> -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of > Thibouille > > The teacher asked to do some work about a legal issue concerning legal > rights of photographs use. > As he showed us a couple short movies on the topic and because I > believe that street shooting is indeed a fundamental of photography, > I'd like to know: > > * the status of street shooting in your country, both on a legal and a > practical point of view (I know that often things are permitted but > some zealot thinks you shouldn't be allowed to no matter what the law > is) ? > * did the status of street shooting in your country change in recent > years (I'd say recent being last 15 years till today) ? > * would you say there's a tendency to restrict photographer's rights > in your country and why/how ?
in England you can pretty much photograph anything in or from a public place unless there's some specific law against it. There has been a lot in the news recently about journalists hacking mobile phones to get information about celebs and other people in the news, and this has occasionally veered onto the subject of paparazzi photographing celebs, even though the first act is clearly illegal while the second is not (although some paps' behaviour could be classed as harassment). Similarly, the recent Occupy protests have raised the issue of what is and is not public space. The protests could not be held in places such as Canary Wharf and, believe it or not, Paternoster Square, because they are apparently private property. This same argument is often used to prevent people taking pictures. My view, and I think courts would probably take the same view because there is plenty of precedent, is that these places may be private property but they are still public spaces. At an individual level, there seem to be more and more people who think that photography in public should be restricted, or that we should be obliged to have everyone's permission before we include them in a photograph. It doesn't take much thought to realise what a dangerous idea this is from the point of view of individual liberty. I think the reason for the increased pressure on photographers is that there is a general lack of education here about fundamental rights of people in society, about why it is so important to distinguish between the public and the private realm, and about why photography as a witness helps maintain rights. Publishing pictures is a different issue, of course. There are restrictions on how photographs can be used, particularly for commercial use (as opposed to artistic & journalistic use) and on the whole these have been stable recently. B -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
