know your rights

A read an interesting article today in the Entertainment section my morning peruse. The words liable and photographer were in the headline so I went on to read:

http://www.movies.msn.com/news/article.aspx?news=234883&GT1=7701

Now this is usually just trashy gossip kind of stuff until you get to the last article, which reads, “A law that took effect this year holds photographers who engage in criminal behavior to get a picture liable for three times the damages they cause, plus loss of any profits the published photo might generate.”

This came to a bit of a surprise to me b/c I wasn’t aware of such a law, unless it’s specific to California, but nonetheless I thought a quick review of legal rights for photographers would be a good idea.

Here are some links I found in a quick search that give some good insight:

• http://www.rcfp.org/photoguide/
• http://photography.about.com/od/legalissues/
• PDF of legal rights