Photo columnists, including myself, have been fanning the
 fires of this hotly debated question for decades. A wall of mythology has built
 up around the subject, and I'll make the first move to break it down for you.
 To give you a simplistic answer: No, you do not need a model release.

                      You may now get up off the floor and sit back down. I'll ask you to be
 open to a re-programming process. First, a few questions: Have you ever seen
 a newspaper photographer ask for a model release? Did the video photographer
 in the Rodney King case ask the policemen or Mr. King for a model release?

                      If your photo is informing or educating the public, you do not need a model
 release.

                      And this is where the confusion comes in. Here at PhotoSource International
 we encourage you to follow the trail of the new generation new media. New
 generation media: magazines, books, and electronic media. About a million dollars
 a day are spent in this category of stock photography, whose essential purpose
 is to INFORM and to EDUCATE. Photobuyers in this arena rarely require a model
 release, unless the photo is so sensitive that it might compromise a person
 in some way. Short of highly sensitive areas such as drug abuse, sex education,
 mental retardation, you won't find your buyers asking you for a model release.

                      "How and why was I under the impression that model releases are always
 required?" you ask.

                      Most of the teaching and training in the USA for working photographers,
 is slanted to COMMERCIAL photography, where you always need a model release.

                      As stock photography grew and became more prevalent, commercial photographers
 switched over to media photography, and brought along with them the rules for
 commercial photography: i.e. you need a model release. Since most classic stock
 photography is used for commercial purposes, these photographers are right,
 you do need a model release if you are photographing in the commercial sector.

                      Enter the publishing world. Large publishing houses, which spend $50,000
 to $150,000 per month for photography, are vigilant about protecting their First
 Amendment Rights, and in so doing, they protect your First Amendment
 Rights. If Houghton Mifflin, Harcourt Brace, etc. were to require model releases
 for the pictures they use, they would soon go out of business, because media
 photographers would not put up with the chore of getting model releases for
 slews of editorial, "non-posed" pictures.

                      As a stock photographer, operating a business in a free enterprise society,
 you have a powerful law on your side, namely the First Amendment of the U.S.
 Constitution. The First Amendment in effect says you can freely photograph in
 public as long as you are not breaking any local laws, such as trespassing.

BOOK AND MAGAZINE EXCEPTION

            Most of the horror stories concerning model releases that you read about have
 had to do with commercial photography (for ads and with sales and products for
 purchase), where YES, you do need a model release. Not so in the book and magazine
 illustration field.

                      The million-dollar-a-day book and magazine industry fiercely protects its
 First Amendment rights. Publishing houses fill swivel chairs at long oak tables
 with legal advisors, who remain steadfast in protecting their clients' side
 of the First Amendment, which maintains that if you are informing and educating,
 a model release is not necessary. The exception would be those rare cases involving
 highly sensitive subjects.

                      This report opens the window and lets some fresh air in on this subject.
 If you've been relinquishing your First Amendment rights up to this point, I
 hope this report helps you regain them. Go out and photograph freely in public
 in the style of Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lange, and Arthur Rothstein.

                      It would be a bureaucrat's dream for officials to be able to say, "You
 can't photograph in my school, my police precinct, my park." In reality, these
 people (school principals, policemen, etc) are your civil servants. Your taxes
 pay for their buildings, equipment, and salaries. As long as you are not interrupting
 their normal course of duties you can photograph them.

                      There have been lawsuits, yes. But if you examine each case, the plaintiff
 always goes after the publisher with deep pockets, not the photographer. We're
 back to the long oak table with swivel chairs filled with experts. The plaintiff
 rarely wins.

                      The bottom line is that you should leap over the wall of mythology that
 for years has surrounded this model release question, and go out and photograph
 freely in public. The world will be a better place as a result of your efforts.
 -RE.