take a picture, it'll last longer.
September 10, 2007 3:33 PM   Subscribe

Murdered? Killed? Abducted? Information regarding your photo that gets shown on news reports and articles about your demise.

Hail Citzens of Metafilter!

Well, we've all seen these stories, the bad ones that fill up the news between headline and sports, weather. Missing persons, murdered persons, with yearbook, driving license or other photo splashed across the screen.

My question is a general, catch-all inquiry as to the nature of these photographs.

Where do these pictures come from? I assume a stringer or journalist goes to the next of kin and asks for a driving license photo or similar.

Is there a release that needs to be signed? I understand that in the case of a missing person, one would want their photo to have the maximum coverage.

In the case of someone having no next of kin, is it just a 'fair use' usage of the image in question?

If one is the deceased, does the deceased have no rights to the photo anymore? Do the family own the rights to the photo? Can they withdraw the license to use this photo?

Do the news networks have unlimited rights to use the photo as and where they wish? E.g. in a collage of missing persons, advert for new show about missing people etc.

If it is a picture of someone who goes missing, subsequently returns and then commits a string of robberies, can the network/press use the same photo in both instances?

Also, has there ever been a case where the wrong photo of say, a still-living person being used as the picture for a recently deceased person?

As I said, it's a grab-bag of questions relating to the core question, so any information you might have regarding this will do fine.
posted by snailer to Media & Arts (12 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
yes, i believe there's usually a release that is signed that addresses these questions.
posted by thinkingwoman at 3:40 PM on September 10, 2007


At the public library where I work, we get reporters occasionally who come in looking for high school yearbook photos of people for their stories. According to our attorney, reproduction of the yearbook photos for this purpose, though they are copyrighted, is permissible in our state.
posted by Rykey at 3:54 PM on September 10, 2007


I always wondered about these photos too. The wife and I talked about it just the other night. I realized that there are very few pictures of myself, because I'm always running the camera. She suggested we take some more pictures of me.

I hope it wasn't an omen.
posted by sanka at 4:07 PM on September 10, 2007


I think they'd usually ask next-of-kin, but I've seen a couple of instances where news stories were accompanied by photographs from the subject's Myspace profile.
posted by lhall at 4:37 PM on September 10, 2007


9 times out of 10 these shots are "collects" -- they've been given freely by the family or the police to a press agency or a reporter, and can be used for just about anything.

The other time, someone has a hard-to-get picture of someone, and will sell it to the papers for £lots. This is usually only true for criminals, not dead people.
posted by bonaldi at 4:50 PM on September 10, 2007


A lot of times the picture is CLEARLY a mug shot. So in some cases the victims were at some point in their lives, arrested and booked.
posted by peep at 6:02 PM on September 10, 2007


More recently, news agencies have been using photos from social networking sites like myspace.
posted by fermezporte at 7:25 PM on September 10, 2007


Best answer: At U.S. newspapers where I worked, the means of obtaining photographs varied. For example, obituaries came strictly from funeral homes, which provided photos given to them by the deceased's relatives. This process did not require any release, since obviously the kinfolk had given the FH permission to use said photos. (And how is the dead person going to object to use of a certain pic?)

And those newspapers never, ever accepted an obituary from some yokel who called or e-mailed or brought into the newsroom a typed or handwritten obit. Too many nutjobs want to "plant" fake obits about guys or ex-wives they despise, etc., and think it would be just hilarious if ol' Freddy saw his own obit in the paper!

In missing persons cases, the newspapers accepted photos AND info only from law enforcement authorities. Not from families or friends, because who knew if the "missing" person wanted to escape an abusive dad or stepdad, the teenager just went on a bender to Mexico in dad's car, etc.

You also asked "In the case of someone having no next of kin, is it just a 'fair use' usage of the image in question?" I think if the cops and/or funeral home folks are pretty sure the deceased had no KNOWN relatives and they know where to get a photo (or I lift one out of a yearbook), then it's OK to print it.

As for TV news network use of photos -- not my area.
posted by Smalltown Girl at 7:25 PM on September 10, 2007


9 times out of 10 these shots are "collects" -- they've been given freely by the family or the police to a press agency or a reporter, and can be used for just about anything.

Speaking as a former journalist that once had to actually ask a grieving family for a photo, this is exactly correct.

For the 1 out of 10 where this doesn't happen, 9 times out of 10 in those instances, the photo is obtained via sources that are considered to be Fair Use cases -- a high school yearbook, for example, or a driver's license, or a police booking photo -- even if they literally aren't in the public domain.

Legit news organizations get pretty wide latitude when it comes to Fair Use.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:48 PM on September 10, 2007


Best answer: Missing persons: family or friends provide headshots to cops and reporters.

Criminal suspects: mugshots from the cops, a headshot if you can wheedle it out of the family, or you go look for yearbook photos or internet photos.

I've never heard of signing any kind of release for any of these photos. And yes, the press can use the photos ad nauseum. There is no way to get them to stop using a photo (unless it's the wrong person, obviously).

Photos go into a file on the person that contains clips and other info. If they were to go missing, get found, and then kill someone or do something else newsworthy, of course the same photo would be used. It saves time.

Wrong photos slip through - even in the case of famous people, sometimes a photo of someone else will get printed. Mistakes happen.

Incidentally, getting photos of the dead/suspect is crucial to the story and a competitive reporter will try to get to the family first and get ALL the photos (to be returned later) so the competition doesn't get any.
posted by CunningLinguist at 8:57 PM on September 10, 2007


What smalltown girl said, mostly. But at newspapers I've worked at, we've accepted photos from friends/family/yearbook research too. We would confirm that it was a real missing persons case with the police before doing a story, but accept photos from multiple sources.

Once one newspaper runs a photo, assuming that newspaper is a member of the Associated Press, that photo generally becomes available to all other AP members, including other papers as well as TV stations.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 10:13 PM on September 10, 2007


if you're interested in who owns/has the rights to distribute news photographs when it comes to the AP, etc, the JonBenet pink sweater photo is a classic example. We used it as a case study in my photojournalism class.
posted by kidsleepy at 5:51 AM on September 11, 2007


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