an interesting case

A television station shot some footage for later use of a crowd entering a building. The camera person centred in on a young woman in the crowd. The footage was later sold to another station and edited into the start of a midnight strip show. The woman sued and won but the interesting part related to the judgement.

The original station had the right to shoot the footage because it was in a public place. No releases were necessary and they had the right to sell it to the other station. The shot however became defammatory because it implied that the young woman centred out in the crowd (a prominent socialite) frequented strip clubs.

So, no release was necessary and if the station had edited out the close-up there would have been no case against them, and also if the footage had been used in a less "controversial" manner there would have been no case against them either.

Ronnoco

Thats typical in a litigeous society, the old lady who burned herself with hot coffee from a McDonalds drivethrough opened a can of worms. If the judge had done his job in that case we wouldn't be seeing all these rediculous suits now. The old lady was responsible, not McDonalds, the judge should have thrown the case out. Instead we get suits for every little thing anymore.
JS

JS-
I'm not sure if what you're saying applies in this case. I think that the woman suing for being used in an ad for a strip club has a perfectly legitimate case. She's not responsible in any way for being associated with the strip club. Whereas the woman who spilled coffee on herself should have cursed a bit and left it at that.

My point being that people sue for anything and everything. I don't think either of them had a case, but I guess I'd like to see the photo, I guess I am seeing it from a "get rich quick" side of things.

JS

It was not a photo, but rather television footage but I agree with Photo-John. The woman had a case. To get back to the relevance however this is my point.

Photo releases were not the issue and not required. Being paid for the use of her image in the footage was also not required and not the issue. If the footage had been used in another context that was not defammatory, no legal action could have been taken.

It was only the defammatory nature of the use that created liability, not the issue of permissions, releases, or payments.

So, bottom line would seem to be that taking photos or video footage of someone in a public place does not require releases or payment, irrespective of use, as long as that use cannot be construed as defammatory toward an individual.

Ronnoco