Want to know what your rights are as a photographer in the USA for shoot photos in public? All of us USA’ers do, as well as anyone who might travel here.
So…As a part of his hitRECORD project, kudos go out to actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt (my best friend panel pal – here we are talking creativity…) for calling on the ghost of Ben Franklin to educate us via this cheesy–but very informative–cartoon by the ACLU and hitRECORD.
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The “reasonable suspicion of a crime” part could be used make you stop taking photos right?
1st Amendment protects free speech.
What if you don’t “publish” photos you take? If they just sit on your hard drive, there is no free speech to protect. The 4th Amendment still applies in seizing the camera. Does anybody have a legal definition of publish?
At this point, does IP law take over? Can you sue for the misappropriation of IP (images on the card)?
There is a reasonable expectation that there is a time lag from the moment you take a photo to the moment you publish it. Whether that’s in minutes or months, there is a process. With that, taking my camera away and preventing me from publishing those photos is hurting my free speech rights.
Michael
The first amendment, which is the Bill of Rights, includes both the Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press among others. The Freedom of Speech part, that covers all american’s professional or not. Whether your photos are published or not doesn’t really impact the freedom part.
Awesome vid… isn’t that the kid from third rock from the sun…? lol Here in canada our rights are slightly different. youll still find cops trying to enforce bogus stuff like that though. The worst is the private corporations like malls and stores that claim they have a policy against photos on their property, but fail to post the policy or clearly identify where its posted when asked. In the case this happens i usually roll film and kepp bugging them about it, since here they can catch a lawsuit if they cause any damages or you get damaged in any way on their property 🙂 e.g. slip and fall. or a security guard pushes you and you fall etc.
If you go out in public and are being filmed 24/7 by corps. and thier security cameras. It should be your given right to film their property as well. It’s gotta be some sort of insecurity that scares them about not having their property filmed. You would think a proud company with a strong corporate identity woulden’t mind having their branding / products shown in a photo / video weather its the primary subject or not.
photograph what you like! It’s your right.
thanks for sharing, great video + message!