What would you pay to use your favorite surfer in any way you saw fit?
A few weeks ago, Albee Layer posted an Instagram shot of himself cruising Jaws that had been used by Apple in an advertising campaign, writing in the caption:
I don’t remember agreeing to this. I should sue apple haha. But on a real note I think it’s kind of weird that people just show up to places like jaws take photos or video with no ones permission then make money off of it with no benefit to the surfers.
Something about it struck me as funny but I moved on without giving it much more thought… until the same image popped onto my screen as I was sending a large file using Wetransfer (above). There he was again. Cruising.
Then again on a World Surf League Jeep ad. Cruising.
And then epiphany! There is no person showing up to places like Jaws taking photos or video with no ones permission then making money off of it with no benefit to the surfers. The World Surf League must be doing it! Am I right? Which made me wonder, does the WSL own the rights of any/all professional surfer images? Like, if you sign up for one of the tours/WSL specialty events from the CT to the QS to the Big Wave do you also sign over your likeness? And not just surfing in the event, as the Albee photo is not from competition?
I totally bet so!
And if the League is then theoretically turning around and selling images to Apple, Wetransfer, etc. what else are they doing? Are there lots of Tindr profiles feat. Kanoa Igarashi and Leo Fioravanti? Grindr profiles? Is there a booming Jack Freestone screensaver trade in India? Is Kolohe Andino the face of Bolivia’s McDonalds?
How much for an Albee? What about a Kanoa or Leo? Is Kolohe a great price conscious alternative to John John?
Who should BeachGrit buy?
Lawyer up Albee. Its apple. Or the WSL. Win/win.
For any of these Corporations to use his image without his consent or release is a big no no.
“People also have a right of publicity, which means that a photographer can not publish a photo containing recognizable images of people, other than in conjunction with a news story, without getting their permission. Placing personal photos where they can be viewed by others, such as on a social networking web page, constitutes publication. Photographers should get written permission from the people appearing in photos before publishing them, according to the American Society of Media Photographers.” (Simple explanation from Legalzoom)
However because this is surfing, its like totally cool and stuff or something. The WSL has all surfers sign a release. If Albee has an Agent worth his $$ than this is an unauthorized use and time to demand some cashola! The dodge in this is that it was shot in a public place and the question is can a certain amount of the public recognize Albee? I agree with Nick Carroll. Sticky Situ! Bookem! Aloha!
Once upon a time I was a board member of ASMP. I’d like to ask Albee how many songs he has on his device’s that he has never paid for? Copy Right and Usage are serious issues. L. Samuels was pretty good at adding something to an image at potsurf, heck for what it’s worth Rory and his ‘dick” fetish worked the same angle around usage.. This is old news but interesting and a tuff nut to swallow for the photographer: https://nyti.ms/2k7GCQG
Writer’s have “Writers Guild of America”. It would make sense for photographers to have the same. No?
Use a pro surfer any way I saw fit? I could think of a few unspeakable things I would have Tati Webb do for me… one of which would be fixing me Penne al Cioccolato con Anchovies.
Reverse image search led me here: https://stocksnap.io/photo/…
Licencing info here: https://stocksnap.io/license
“All photos on StockSnap fall under the Creative Commons CC0 license. That means you can copy, modify, distribute any photo on the site, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission!”
Thanks for doing my job! But how does it work? Do photographers always own the image no matter who’s in?
I’m not sure, my limited understanding is that the photographer always owns the copyright of the image, but a model release might be required for commercial use, including advertising.
If the photographer doesn’t get a model release and makes the image available for free, the person who uses it commercially might need to get one.
The T&C’s for people signing up to stocksnap.io to submit photos seem to support this: https://stocksnap.io/terms
The people using the photo might have licensed the image from the photographer, or a different website, under different terms, but it doesn’t sound like Albee signed a release either way.
unless photog was hired on contract. Then the client owns creative license but photo credits are usually written into contracts
Albee is protected under the “publicity or privacy rights” of the Creative Commons license see it here: https://creativecommons.org…
Stock snaps got it from unsplash who got it from the photographer. who submitted it for free to be used with a CC license. So he could for sure sue apple for using his likeness and potentially for inferring endorsement (since he is pro and is a paid endorser other products), the shooter is protected because he theoretically never profited.
photog aquí: http://photo.repponen.com/
Photographers always own the image, but the rights to USE that image depend on a wide variety of circumstances (editorial/art/advertising, model releases, public vs private property, etc). Mostly it comes down to who’s getting screwed, really, and the answer is almost always everyone. Remember when the WSL tried to claim it owned any photos shot at tour events? That was a gas.
Edit: I should say if you get hired as a photog to explicitly shoot something like an event, then you often don’t own the images. But not always – that’s why wedding photogs don’t just hand over a harddrive full of originals of your cousin Karl stuffing his face with the hors d’oeuvres.
Yeah, this is basically it.
On the whole, rights depends a lot on how hard someone wants to work to assert them. So in this case, Albee could lawyer up and tell the commercial users that hey, he didn’t grant them image rights and they need to take the images down or pay him out. He might or might not win that claim and — the pay-out might not be really worth the effort of asserting it.
I can think of at least one case where an athlete got an image pulled from an ad campaign because the company didn’t pay him out. So it does happen.
Totally. Unfortunately, there’s a usually whole lot of lawyer’ing and “Cease and Desist”s between athlete and potential payout and, like you said, ain’t always worth the effort.
I just sold this to Microsoft for the newest Windows default background.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
How much you get?
I actually negotiated for a refurbished Surface Pro!!
Ripping…
Correct me if I’m wrong, but in the good ol’ U.S. of A., it’s totally legal to take someone’s photo in public (no expectation of privacy) and use it as art – post it to Instagram, sell prints of it, etc. But I don’t think you can use it for non-editorial (ie, advertising) purposes without a signed release, so…methinks Mr. Layer needs to read his contracts closer or have a talk with his agent…
I guess the rub here is in the ID. The photographer must have signed it away in some fashion. But would it be commonly known that this is Albee, other than to a few of us surfers? He’s a long way off and his name isn’t used as part of the ad. In the context of a WSL ad, the use would have been signed away in whatever Albee signed in order to compete. But for sale to a third party? Very sticky one.
Is he in a jersey? I can’t tell, but if he is (or if it was a warm up during a sanctioned WSL event) and the photog was on the WSL payroll, then guaranteed that’s the catch. I’m sure you sign something as a WSL athlete that says they can use your photos to promote whatever the hell they feel like, from MacBooks to herpes medication.
If he’s out of the jersey, then it goes back to the editorial vs. advertising thing, but you’ve been around this game more than myself or any other schlubs commenting here have.
Not many rights for a photo taken in public versus private. I highly doubt the swiftest of Harvey Spectrs would be able to argue that Albee is actually recognisable, from memory it only accounts for facial features, not a posture or “style” that would be applying in this case. Look at the street art crowd and the problems they have with big biz using their artworks for free. Bank of Melbournes recent “we are the makers” campaign is a great example. We have seen how aggressive WSL’s handle is on the press, it would be foolish to think that any image taken inside an event waiting period at the comp site would not be under WSL’s creative commons.