Model Releases -- When and When Not

            If you straddle both commercial and editorial stock (and it
   isn't easy), here's a simple clarification of when you do and don’t need
   a model release:

            Say a film company is producing a movie in your hometown and
   it stars Anthony Hopkins. You get a photo of him (close up) enjoying an ice
   cream cone. You decide to print the photo on T-shirts and sell them for $10
   each. Anthony Hopkins' attorneys will contact you and you'll find yourself
   forking over all of your revenue to Mr. Hopkins and his legal team. A model
   release would have been needed here, and no doubt the celebrity would not
   grant it for such a purpose.

            On the other hand, if a publisher is producing a coffee table
   book on ice cream and they need a photo of a celebrity eating an ice cream
   cone, you might score with your Anthony Hopkins photo. If your picture qualifies,
   you'll make a sale, and you'll never hear from the Hopkins legal group. No
   model release is needed. Why? Because with the photo in the editorial coffee
   table book you are informing and educating, and our Freedom of the Press feature
   of the First Amendment of the Constitution allows you this right. The attorneys
   at large magazine and publishing houses are continually defending this right--and
   in so doing, are defending you as an editorial photographer, who captures
   your visual diary of the world as you see it.

            A good test also is the Golden Rule. If a photographer captured
   a good picture of your teenager on a public tennis court swinging a racket,
   and placed the picture on coffee mugs for a tennis club and didn't share the
   profits with your teenager, you would probably be upset. The photographer
   should have gotten a model release from you, if your teenager was under 18.
   No doubt you would begin legal action if the photographer were not cooperative
   and refused to share the revenue. If the picture, however, appeared in a textbook
   on teen sports, such use is the right of the photographer and publisher. No
   model release would be required, unless the accompanying text were derogatory
   in some way.

            Getting model releases is a must if you want to become a full-time
   pro in commercial photography. As a commercial photographer you’ll receive
   requests for photos to be used in ads, on billboards, record covers, promotional
   brochures, etc. Even as an editorial photographer you may want to get releases
   with certain of your photos, if you want those photos eligible to be used
   in ads or promotional material.

            Most full-time commercial stock photographers carry a
   model release pad with them everywhere, in their camera bag. This can lead
   to additional benefits: one old-timer friend of mine who photographed celebrities
   and always made sure to get signed releases from them, now has a box full
   of signatures on model releases from famous people in the entertainment, sports,
   and political fields. He expects to pass these on to his heirs, in that many
   of the signatures may become valuable. This strays a bit from things strictly
   photographic, but collecting model release signatures in the celebrity arena
   could provide another revenue source if you don't mind the administration
   of it all.

            Entering the area of commercial stock photography is a choice
   that only you can make. If, however, you remain solely in the editorial field,
   rarely will a photobuyer ask you for a model release.

Rohn Engh is director of PhotoSource
   International and publisher of PhotoStockNotes.