A Model Release is a simple contract, a form signed by the subject of a your photograph setting out what are your contractual obligations to each other. If you are working for publishers in the USA, or intend to sell photographs into the stock images market, you will need to get signed model releases for each photograph. Here’s Alamy’s model release page, and here’s one from a US model agency.
In the UK? No.
There is absolutely no requirement in the UK even to ask permission to take someone’s photograph, providing the photographer doesn’t harass the subject in any way.
If someone asks you to take photographs of them for a modelling portfolio, agree the terms for your payment in advance. In UK law the photographs always belong to the photographer, who might in law do anything, including publishing them anywhere, without recompensing the model.
Redeye, the Manchester photography network, say:
“if you are photographing in public for editorial or artistic purposes, it is good professional practice to explain to people what you are photographing them for, and ask them whether they mind their photograph being used. Whether you back this up with a piece of paper is up to you. If you take a photo of someone in the street and then distort it hideously and supply an offensive caption, they should sue you for defamation whether or not they gave consent.”
Photographing children is slightly different: paid child models need to be licensed, so use a reputable model agency. For photographing children who are not professional models, again it isn’t compulsory to obtain a model release, but a signed parental consent form is a good idea if you’re doing studio shoots.
There are a full set of legal forms at the back of the AOP’s Beyond The Lens, and available for free download from their website. The Getty Images model release form is on Page 18 of the PDF.
The standard legal guidance for photographers in the UK is available for download as a PDF from Linda Macpherson. The secretary of Newcastle Uni’s Photo Soc has some slightly more strident advice here.
So If you have photographs of local Yorkshiremen and women, their children and dogs, posing for your camera in the weak spring sunshine on Saltburn pier – go ahead and publish them!
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22 Comments
Thanks Brenda! that’s brilliant! I asked a few more people this week and the general consensus was that if I was going to make any money out of the pics then I might need a form or something. But it’s good to know, thanks for writing about it. Will see you at college tomorrow :)
The information is all there on the good auld intenet. That Linda Macpherson link is the one people seem to use the most. Won’t be around tomorrow, too busy finishing um, research and whatnot.
Thanks so much for this! As an American living in the UK, it’s really helpful to know how the laws are different here. Cheers!
I do not agree that in “UK law the photographs always belong to the photographer, who might in law do anything, including publishing them anywhere, without recompensing the model.”
Sorry!
For a start there is very little “UK Law” – our law is English (incl Welsh) Law or Scottish Law or the Law of Northern Ireland.
Move on a moment:
a) The copyright in photographs taken by a salaried photographer will normally belong to his/her employer.
b) I hire a photographer to take photographs of some function I’m hosting. The ownership of the copyright will be covered in the contract between us!
Thanks for this useful addition Richard. There’s been quite a bit of interest in this post lately, so further clarification is very welcome.
There is indeed no such thing as UK law: we have law in England and Wales, and usually different law under a different system in Scotland. A clearer sentence would be” In the UK, the law always assigns ownership of the photographs to the photographer.”
In your points a) and b), a contract allows use of the photographer’s work under certain terms and conditions, by someone else. This ‘use’ doesn’t mean ownership of the copyright, which remains with the photographer. In your second example, if you employ me to take photographs of your event, the copyright will remain with me and I will licence a number of prints or digital files for your use for an agreed period of time.
I think in Richard’s point a) above the contract of employment will have something to say about ownership of ALL work done while employed (not just photographic), provided that it is related to the employment. So, if I take pictures of a site, in pursuance of my job as a planer with the local council, most employment contracts will say the ownership of those photos remains with the council, especially if taken using council owned equipment, but not necessarily. That was the position I was in anyway. It is much hazier if there is nothing in the contract of employme and I think case law goes both ways.
Similarly in point b) – the contract between photographer and employer may well assign copyright to the employer. The photographer’s fee may be significantly higher in those circumstances of course. In the absence of any mention in the contract between the parties, I would think the assumption is that the copyright remains with the photographer, but I wouldn’t want to rely on that if it ever got to court. But then no self-respecting photographer is going to sign a contract that doesn’t cover the copyright of their work are they? I hope not anyway. I always included a clause retaining copyright in my contracts even when I was working as a community planner or planning consultant, just to be on the safe side.
I paid a photographer to do my portfolio £100 for 100 pics. I didn’t sing any model release as I paid this photos to use for my work.
But now he is using my pictures in his website, facebook and all advertises to promote himself. I wrote a letter asking him to delete and respect my privacy and he said that the photographer has the copyright and nothing I can do.
do not agree with him to use my images and also promote him without even put my links and name. He also blocked me on facebook do not be able to see how he is using my pics but people send me links and I have the copies.
He is using pics that I don’t want to show and he don’t want to delete. What should I do? Any law to protect me?
I appreciate if you could send me an email with info.
Regards,
Marta, without a specific written agreement stating that you have purchased sole rights to the use of the photographs, the pictures always belong to the photographer.
I don’t think it would be possible to buy sole and exclusive rights or £1 an image, in any case. You might try a different approach and ask if you can buy a few of the photographs at a more commercial price. Exclusivity always comes at a price. Maybe start at something like £100 – 200 each, or more.
It seems to me that you have had a bit of a bargain. When you say you have copies: isn’t that exactly what you bought, copies? If the photographer is using them to promote his work, they must be quite good, so they also promote you, as a model. One could take the view that this free publicity is a good thing for your career.
Asking for exclusivity is rather like paying for one meal in a restaurant and expecting the price to include the restauranteur never making it for anyone else again.
Hope that helps, and thank you for sharing this important issue with our readers.
Hi, I have a friend and I’m trying to help her with the following issue:
She is a photographer and she was shooting a model in a studio along with another photographer who invited her to cooperate. At some point the other photographer, pretending “joke and fun-like” kind of situation persuaded her to take couple of pictures of her.
Pictures appeared soon on many internet websites without her knowledge and agreement. She is not UK citizen so she would never thought he can publish the pictures at will.
The main problem is that the picture presents her in very false light this being underlined by the fact that the picture was digitally cropped in order to meet the photographer hidden intentions. Moreover the photographer knew a priori she would not agree with any kind of publication. Now he refuses any kind of communication with her and keeps the photo published harming her and her private life.
Is there any sort of law protection against such abuse of law and photographer’s intentions to cause as much demage as possible to a private person? Considering that he is altering her personal data and image as she is clearly identifiable on that picture as well.
Thank you very much.
Juri, your case is very similar to Marta’s above. The person who makes the photograph owns the copyright, unless there is a written agreement or contract to the contrary.
The best course to take in these situations is to remain friendly and ask that the photographs aren’t published. Many photographers would comply with your request, but again many wouldn’t.
I guess the key piece of advice here would be never, ever to get into any kind of compromising situation, naked, semi-naked, drunk, dressed up in fetish clothing, having sex, anything like that, with anyone who has a camera in their hand. More difficult than it used to be, I know.
Thank you for your answer.
I was also thinking that as the photographer digitally modified the published picture he changes the public image and plays with privacy and personal data of the depicted person. He basically cropped out the clothes and therefore the image is juste false and also it is published within a false context. Do you think it could be considered as defamation or libel?
Thank you a lot again.
Juri, just as the ownership of the photograph remains with the photographer, so does the right to alter, edit, change, vary the result in any way.
You seem concerned enough that your best course of action might be to contact a lawyer. Depending on which legal jurisdiction applies in respect of privacy, and who she is, you might be able to do something. But the privacy aspects are quite a different matter to the right of ownership over the photograph itself.
she may have a cause of action in libel
I am a photographer I had a spoken deal with a model to produce some adult photos for a website we were producing together. She was being paid a % of the profits but I never got a model release like I would normally. She has now left and is asking me to take down the website which I have refused to do as I own the rights as far as im concerned and she went back on the deal. Am correct that I am within my rights to keep the site up regardless of whether I have a model release or not?
Regards
Bob – I don’t work with or support people who make “adult” pictures.
Hello! I have a quick Question!!
I am a people photographer. I shot a friend once for free. She was visiting from France to California so I thought it would be a nice gesture to give her some very nice pictures of herself. I shot her in my studio, several clothing attires as well as make up. Everything for free. I never asked her to sign a model release as she was to be my friend for life. She wanted me to save all raw images for her on a Cd, and we all know that is just impossible. It would be just like giving a model all the negatives from a shoot. So, I gave her several 8×10 prints. She insisted through email that she get all her images on a CD. I refused and sent her just low resolution jpegs of the picutres I had retouched and several 5×7 copies of my favorite pics. I have used her images for my self-promotion ; Facebook Group, Flickr and website. She is threatening to sue me for using her images without my consent. As far as I am concerned I have not made money out of them. I am still a student and don’t even own a business.
I am keeping her photos on my website and blogs because I feel I have the right to do so. Is there anything I am doing wrong?
I dont think it’a question of business. Do you also feel that she should have a right to control how her image is being used? Why didnt you ask for model release if you wanted to publish? I absolutely dont understand how someone can “feel” to have right to freerly use image of someone without the subject’s consent (suppusing she is not a public figure who can expect such behaviour).
Juri,
Unfortunately sometimes when we work with close friends an important thing we forget to do is to work out all the paper work. So that must answer your question of Why I didn’t ask her to sign a model release. So you can better understand how someone can “feel” the right to freely use an image of someone without the subject’s consent : As a photographer the © copyright belongs to me. Which is why I ‘feel’ that I have the right to use the image for my personal promotion (as long of course as I am not directly using her image for lucrative purposes). It is my work we are talking about, I am not promoting her, I am promoting an IMAGE of her, that I’ve created. After all, don’t we all want to share our work with others? I guess my question should have been: Is there anything illegal about posting images up on my website without a model release of the subject?
Well okay. But then, if it really is your close friend I would guess you really care about her opinion and if she doesnt want an image of her to spread acround the world you should respect it.
There is no doubt that you own the copyright and that the picture is your work that you can promote. But we are talking only about the picture. How about the person depicted? What are her rights? There is no doubt that it is still her face and her identity and she is the one who one a “copyright” to her identity and that she can fully control how her image is being used. You own the poicture but not the person’s privacy. That’s what I think.
Anyway, unlike in the UK fortunately the USA seem to have a lot stricter laws concernig protection of privacy so I think you definitely need a model release form to publish.
Finn, Juri,
One of you is from France, the other the USA. It would help you to look up how the law stands under jurisdiction in your own country. In the meantime, be nice. There is nothing worse than bad reports, especially relating to anything remotely sleazy.
How do you avoid bad reports about your business? Avoid bad behaviour.
Great news, very useful. Thank you.
Hi Linda
I have decided to become a freelance Photographer, doing weddings, Portraits and I would like to put them on my website.
Please can you tell me if I need to get a model release form sign by each person at any weddings I do, I know I might need to do it when I do Portraits.
Many Thanks
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