Would you consider..

That does not apply here (UK)

Not to mention that it's incomplete. If there's any jurisdiction in the so-called free world where one is at risk for publishing a photo taken of people doing ordinary things in a public place - unless it's used for some commercial purpose like promotion of a product or service - I don't know where that jurisdiction would be.

At the bottom of that article it says that it is not to be taken as legal advice and that people with concerns should get legal advice from their attorney.

Also, good luck trying to justify taking photos of young women sunbaking on a public beach or young kids on a beach or playing in a public park and then posting them online even if not for commercial purposes.

It depends on the type and contents of the photos, who complained and whether it ended up in a court of law.

When someone takes a photo of you that includes your face, who knows where else that face could end up on the www nowadays.

How did Daneland's picture of two people in a street, end up as a conversation about getting sued?

As I understand it, in the UK and Italy, and I quess most other places, you can take pictures in public places, with people in the shot and use the resulting picture for private or editorial use. No need to get worked up, and end up going down legal rabbit holes. No need for neurosis. If sombody askes you to delete a picture with them in it. Just do it. Use common sense and be street wise about subject matter. Just take pictures of what you want. Just ask yourself, would I want to be photographed this way?

Some time ago a woman wandered into the scene of an Architectural picture I was taking. She asked to see my pictures to make sure I had not photographed her. I just showed her some frames, and she wandered off. A couple of years ago I took that hackneyed shot of kids playing football in an Italian piazza, in front of a church. Nothing happened, nobody accused me of beastly things.

The militants at this far right demo did not beat me up for taking this picture.

Sometimes people are even happy to have their picture taken in the street.

Relax people.

It started here.

A subset of the question of one's legal right to photograph others in public places is the case of dashcams, the legality of which varies from one national jurisdiction to another. In the USA, as with speed radar detectors, the constitution generally protects one's right to take photos of others in public. There are no EU-wide laws about this topic, which gives rise to great confusion. In Austria, where I live, there have been cases where fines of as much as €10,000 have been levied just for the possession of a dashcam. The current basis of such prosecutions is the recently defined EU attitude to data protection, which is also responsible for the ubiquous pop-ups about cookies on websites. Opinions about the legal situation vary, even though most lack any authority. It is held by some to be illegal to take any photos of others in public without their express permission, others claim it is acceptable, as long as the people in the photo are not identifiable (e.g. facing the other way or having blurred features in the photo or video), and another opinion claims that recording and possessing them is acceptable as long as the photos are not published (e.g. on the Internet). This lack of clarity, acknowledged by the ÖAMTC, the Austrian equivalent of the UK's AA and RAC, means that even though, in the case of another vehicle hitting mine, an objective video record might be useful for legal and insurance purposes, I cannot be certain that it would be legal to fit a dashcam to my car. People have been fined here just for having one installed -- without any power connection to it. The situation is similar in North America in the case of radar detectors: crossing from the USA to Canada, one routinely removes any evidence of a detector, in order to avoid having it seized and any consequent prosecution by the police.

David

Photography has become a legal minefield, with mostly unenforceable rules and regulations, in our overregulated societies.

There is just too much neurosis concerning petty privacy. I do not really care if sombody photographs me in the street, or on the beach. I do care that I am tracked around the city by Big Brother somewhat.

everyone seens to want something for nothing, either the subject or the photogrpaher. i posted an image on a facebook group that is run by a world wide group, i poster a world class extreme macro for a bit of fun, they sent me a measage wanting to feature it on there front page with an explaination of how i took the image, ive just ignored the offer as there was nothing in it for me but just free advertizing content for them.

I have had people steal my pictures that I have posted on my Blog. A guy even illustrated a book with a ton of my pictures, who he claimed he shot. Photographs sadly have no value anymore. I just laugh now.

Whether people like it or not, when they post images on the www they are effectively donating them to everyone for free.

Since there are people for whom the concept of copyright means zero I only post images that I don't care what people do with - download them, edit them, sell them, whatever.

Finnan,

The document that you provided for us (as again shown below) was last reviewed in 2008. It is quite out-of-date...more than 16 years out of date. Also they note that "this article is not legal advice".

corporate.findlaw.com/litigation-disputes/publication-of-photographs-is-a-release-required.html

Since 2008 with the proliferation of cell phone cameras, dash cams, residential door cams, commercial security cams, and police cams I find that what "Find Law" writes to be something they might consider reviewing again when they summarize "therefore, the only way a publisher can be almost risk free from such lawsuit is by obtaining a written release from any person(s) or owner(s) of property that appear in a photograph." I've never heard of anyone winning a lawsuit against a photograph publisher in the USA where a legal photograph was taken in public with no expectation of privacy and posted as art, for sharing or for newsworthy purposes. If someone has, please let us all know. Look at social media platforms today, like YouTube. How many millions of people have been photographed without their permission without releases? It's my understanding that you only need a release from an individual, if you plan to use it for commercial purposes, for example like you want to use that individual's image on a label for one of your products that you are selling. If anyone knows of another reason for a release, please let me know. I try to keep up-to-date on this, as I do take lots of photos, sometimes with people in them (as a lot of you probably do too). Thanks.

Dan,

Yes, I agree. Even if there's a copyright that legally protects our images, we have to consider what we publish on the internet as something people could steal and use for their own purposes. My solution for that, is to only show resized images. I'm not sure if there is technology yet to upscale the photos later, but that's what I do presently.

Daneland,

For my tastes, I prefer to not cut off the faces or limbs as much as possible. You might consider taking photos with a tilted LCD screen which would help you with that.

I'm not sure what you mean because even the most basic image editing apps have always had the option to resample images to a larger size.

Dan,

Yes, that's what I mean. I heard something like that, but I don't know a lot of details about it, about how effective it is. Have you tried resampling to a larger size? Is it accurate, in that it creates exactly the original image?

Edit: I looked at this again. I'm not sure if resample is the right word. Here's something I read on the internet. "If the original is gone you can upscale the (resized) image using various techniques, this does not "recover" the original, it recreates it by guessing." So the original can be created but by only "guessing".

Resampling to a larger size involves interpolating the original rgb data in the image file.

Upsizing in relatively small increments at a time, say up to 20%, usually outputs good results..

With modern AI resizing apps like Topaz Gigapixel you can enlarge up to 6 times in one go with usually very good results.

You can experiment with your own images using any basic image editing app to see the quality of your images that could be produced if someone upsized your online images.

Upsampling (resampling in a way that generates more pixels) can almost never recreate a photographic image exactly ... but it can often do so very closely.

There are two general approaches to resampling: mathematical, which relies on specific established algorithms (several different algorithms exist), and 'intelligent' (AI), which relies on accumulated 'knowledge' gained from analysis of vast numbers of images. Again, neither way is ever likely to recreate an original photographic image exactly.

Dan and Sybersitizen,

Thanks. I did not really pay attention to how they may do that to generate more pixels and I have never done that. But I figured in this day and age, technology can make things like that happen. Thanks for the clarification.

When I wrote "that's what I do presently", I meant that resizing my images is what I do presently. I have never tried to increase the pixels on a resized image, as I've never had a need for that.