Photography business analyst Dan Heller has written a helpful post in which he busts common misconceptions photographers in the US have about model releases. A big one is that you need to first obtain a model release before selling photos of people. Heller writes,

[...] newspapers buy photos, and their use of the photo is unlikely to need a release. So, selling a photo (and making a profit doing so) to a newspaper also does not require a release. And because the law does not require you to have any knowledge of the buyer or their intended use of a photo, you are always allowed to sell photos without a release.

His point is that model releases have to do with photographs being published, not sold. A photographer cannot publish the photos however they’d like, but they can sell them however they’d like since liability rests solely with the eventual publisher. That said, it’s still a good idea to always use one, since they’re often required by the buyers.

Busting Myths about Model Releases [Dan Heller]

Image credit: 257/365 by /*dave*/

The model on the cover of indie band Vampire Weekend’s album “Contra” is suing the band, its record label, and the photographer for more than $2 million. Ann Kirsten Kennis discovered that her image was on the cover of the top-selling album when her daughter purchased it and brought it home to show her.

Kennis claims the model release for the image was forged and the image was used without her consent for commercial use.

Though Kennis worked as a model in New York during the 80s and 90s, she says that the photo, which was taken in 1983, was not taken as a part of her modeling career. Kennis believes that the photo, a Polaroid, was possibly taken by her mother. Kennis’ attorney Alan Neigher, told Entertainment Weekly:

Her mother was a chronic Polaroid snapshot taker, and used to sell whole archives of photographs to these shops, five bucks a hundred or whatever. Her mother may have given away to a charity bazaar a whole ream of photographs. We just really don’t know…She has no idea how that photograph got into the photographer’s hands.

Neigher later said that the family has no solid idea about who took the photo, but he says the family maintains that the signature on the model release was forged.

The credited photographer, Tod Brody, says Kennis’ accusations are false, and that he took the photograph, had it in his posession for 26 years, and only recently gave it to Vampire Weekend for use on the album cover. Brody told PDN:

Ms. Kennis, through her lawyers, has slandered and defamed [him] by claiming that her family took the photo. We will easily prove in court that I took the photo,” he said.

The defendants have not filed an official response to Kennis’ claim, nor has a court date been set.

(via Entertainment Weekly)

Easy Release is a new iPhone app designed to make it easy for you to secure model and property releases.

It was designed by Robert Giroux, a photographer of over 24 years who spent eight years on the staff of Getty Images, and uses the same format and legal language as the release forms used by major photo agencies.

The application replaces traditional paper based releases you would otherwise have to carry around with you by packing all of the forms and required fields inside an iPhone application. All the necessary fields are presented in a step-by-step wizard-style interface, and the signatures are entered directly into the application via the touch screen.

Once the release forms are completed, you can email a PDF or JPEG version of the form to yourself.

The app is available from the iTunes Store for $9.99.

(via PhotographyBLOG)