Do video producers and video bloggers need to obtain a right-of-publicity/model release form from the subjects of their videos if they plan on using the video commercially (including making money from ads)?
I posed the question to San Francisco attorney Colette Vogele at the recent Web Video Summit in San Jose, and then caught up with her in the hallway to capture her answer in this 3-minute video interview taken with a Nokia N-95 cell phone.
Ourmedia page | watch MPEG-4 video
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
Great interview and excellent explanation. Best I’ve heard.
-Steve
Is it just me or is that file corrupted? I’d like to watch this, but my MP4 player freaks out when trying to play it for some reason? Could you try downloading it yourself to see if you can play it? Thanks!
FWIW, I pretty much know the answer already — it’s “technically” yes if you want to protect yourself from getting sued. But a “release” can be many things, from a written signature, to a verbal ok on camera, and sometimes it can even be implied. Also, to the extent it’s “news”, the threshold might even be lower sometimes. That said, if you ever want to use the footage in a documentary, you can run into real problems getting E&O insurance (which is required for distribution deals) if you don’t have releases.
But, I’d love to hear what this video has to say about it! :-)
Works for me, and worked for Steve. Do you have QuickTime 7? There’s also a Flash version here:
http://www.archive.org/details/JDLasicaDovideoproducersneedareleaseform_
Well done, JD and Colette. You mentioned that a model release was available for download. Do you have a url for the form(s)? I’d like to add the link to the legal guide we are creating for the Citizen Media Law Project.
Hi, David!
Ourmedia’s Model release form is here:
http://ourmedia.org/learning-center/topic/law/release-form
Let us know if you suggest any changes.
jd