Originally Posted by
r.e.
Rick,
As someone who does a good deal of street photography, and who consequently has read a good deal of both well-considered and ill-considered comments on this subject, your last post strikes me as far and away the best brief analysis that I have seen.
QT, the actual legal point, apart from the fact that the legalities are irrelevant to the discussion, is that the person who started this thread had the consent of the subject.
End of story, except in the commercial realm, where you are as a practical matter wrong - publishers, and especially film distributors in the case of movies, don't give a damn about Federal Court caselaw. They take the marching orders of their insurers, who aren't interested in being drawn into this debate in the absence of a definitive ruling from the Supreme Court, which doesn't exist.
Intersting, the US is the country where this gets litigated. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least one feature film by Eric Rhomer that contains footage that appears to have been shot in a public place (a major intersection in Paris) where the people crossing the street are pretty obviously just there/passersby/caught in the shot. There isn't a hope in hell that this would make the final cut of an American feature film.
There are endless discussions about the legalities on this and other sites. If this discussion has any merit, it is that it has avoided descending to that level.
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