Legal rights requested

highoctaneimage

G'day Everyone,

this past weekend I took some photos at a local hotrod show in Massachusetts where I now live.
this show was held at a rod and gun club but was a pullic event where i had to pay to get in.
Part of this show was a Pinup girl contest where the girls signed up with zero prize money offered.
I decided to take some pictures with the girls more than happy to have them taken with no questions asked. I came home edited them and placed them on my site, link attached below

http://www.highoctaneimage.com/People/MillTown-Pin-up-girls/24567959_5Zfvs6#!i=2006569608&k=KLQsCPM

I have just received an email from one of the girls and I have no idea on what her or my rights are. Yes I should have researched all this before i took and posted them, but i didn't. I'm reaching out to all of you to hopefully see where i stand. I'm in no way a pro, im avid amateur who enjoys life behind the lens and not out to make mega bucks from pictures, I really dont even mind if i send her a pic or two. but where do i stand with all of this?

below is a copy and paste of the email i received today

Hey Christian, I spoke with you at miltown, I was the pin up in the black pencil skirt & white blouse w the red bandana, I was wondering if I have any rights to the photos of myself and if you could email me Jpegs of them to post to my Facebook. It would be Very much appreciated. Thanks


thanks for taking the time to read this, i appreciate it greatly.

Christian

Art Morgan

Hi Christian, and welcome to dgrin!

The images you take are yours and only yours, unless they were made under the auspices of "works made for hire"; for example, Time magazine sends one of their staff photogs out...the images belong to Time, not the photog...

As long as you have the legal right to be in that place, she has no legal right to the images. (Invasion of privacy, such as using a telephoto lens to peek into someone's house, may be actionable.) But without a model release, you cannot legally use her image to promote anything ("commercial use"). If you wanted to sell the image to any sort of photo agency, the first thing they would (should) ask for is the model release that goes along with the image.

If you want to be nice you could license her a small copy (for free) for use on her facebook page. Could also ask for a model release for that freebie.

Sam

Christian,

Basically you own the copyright to the image. You can pretty much use it for news, fine art, display. You can not use it for commercial advertizing, or sell it as stock photography without a model release.

If I were you I would simply send her a couple of images out of curtsey.

Sam

highoctaneimage

Sam wrote: »

Christian,

Basically you own the copyright to the image. You can pretty much use it for news, fine art, display. You can not use it for commercial advertizing, or sell it as stock photography without a model release.

If I were you I would simply send her a couple of images out of curtsey.

Sam

Thank you so much for your replies. I'm just new to all of this and didn't really know want to get over my head in a legal question. I have no issue with sending her a downsized jpeg version with a water mark as a courtesy for allowing me to photograph her. I have no intentions of selling the pics for commercial gain, however if this person or any other person wanted to purchase it from my site they can.

It's a lot easier to just please her and send it, the old thing of a disgruntled person will complain to 10 others. A happy person may only tell one. As i am new to all of this and trying to get my name out I don't want to get a bad wrap over a trivial issue.

Angelo

Sam wrote: »

Christian,

Basically you own the copyright to the image. You can pretty much use it for news, fine art, display. You can not use it for commercial advertizing, or sell it as stock photography without a model release.

If I were you I would simply send her a couple of images out of curtsey.

Sam

completely, except I would do it out of courtesy.

:hide

.

Sam

Angelo wrote: »

completely, except I would do it out of courtesy.

:hide

.

But a curtsy is soo much more interesting and has that cutesy factor not available with simple courtesy.

Or one could not put their complete trust in spell check.....................:D

Sam

Angelo

Sam wrote: »

But a curtsy is soo much more interesting and has that cutesy factor not available with simple courtesy.

Or one could not put their complete trust in spell check.....................:D

Sam

:curtsey:curtsey:curtsey