Those 2 stories Dee has posted again both relate to (INSIDE AN ARENA) .

Offshore is in the open public domain where you are allowed to shoot. If you can shoot, no one can tell you what you can do with your property.

Photographers have rights !

[QUOTE=Lucididee;2323927]I think the bottom line is you can take a picture wherever you want and pretty much do what you want with them. But the gray line and controversy starts when they are sold for a profit.

Thank you .......... THAT is the bottom line is this particular instance.......AND... another party brought the photographer in to shoot for them.

Just my .02 because I was there....I'm honestly not taking sides due to my affiliation, I try very hard to see both sides of stuff......and there are big mis-understandings here. Bashers, feel free, I am not family.

I am glad I finally got to meet you Sharkey......sorry I didn't have more time to talk to you. After KW I will. Hang in there. PD

Listen I agree with you that it is ridiculous. And you should be able to do what you want, so I won't debate that neither. Like I said the gray line is the right to sell and who profits. So if I go to an event in Central Park or to a beach Volleyball Tournament these are in open space and maybe considered even OPEN DOMAIN but these events are permitted (is that what makes it different?). But as in everything there is a fine line as to what the event organizer allows. And if they want, they will persue it however they choose. And one can debate the definition of OPEN PUBLIC DOMAIN. I always thought that is was anything available to the public. If it's a permitted event how open is it to the public, there are restriction at permitted events. Normally privately owned boats are told were they can and cannot be when on the water during the event. But that's an entirely different arguement all together.

Myself, I hate fine print, but if someone has exclusive rights to an event and has a contract and states it on their website, it is what it is. Is it fair to others??? Just makes getting exclusive rights to the organization (or anything for that matter) more desirable. And unfortunately, any other photographer that shows up than is really just a paparazzi.

Oh hell, even if you own your house, you cannot do whatever you want, you have to get permission (permits) from the town and then your fees (taxes in this case) goes up (unless you file for the 10yr abatement). And then if you still do what ever you want, when you go to sell the house, if it's not on the blueprint you will more than likely have to knock it down.

Again, I'm not debating the right to shoot, the debate is the right to sell for profit. All the laws I see about the right to shoot do not mention the right to sell your copyrighted material. Need to find cases in which people won in court that it allowed, and then you may have to find it per state. Sometimes things are just not that simple, but when you want to protect your property and rights you got to go the extra distance.

Let's keep this discussion simple. Unless you are under contract and have specifically given up your rights to your shots, or you are shooting as someone's employee, or shooting certain military installations, or depriving someone their reasonably expected right to privacy, the following applies:

1. If you can see it, you can shoot it.
2. If you shoot it, you own it.
3. If you own it, you can sell it.

Ok then, in a completely hypothetical situation:

If someone takes pic of you in your boat on a run. That photog owns the rights to the pics and can sell it to whomever they want. Right? And if the pic gets sold to multiple major publications and gets a nice paycheck for that photo, it is fine. That even though an organization paid for the event & that the owner who also paid to enter the event, has abosolutely NO RIGHTS and deserves no compensation nor notority. It's the photographer that owns ALL the RIGHTS and ALL the PROCEEDS. Do you agree?

Correct. Because they are in the PUBLIC DOMAIN.

The law is very clear on this.

Same holds true if you are George Clooney getting a star on Hollywood Blvd, or Britney goin to the liquor store for a bottle of JD, etc, etc, etc

The law is very clear on taking pics, but not very clear on the selling of them. The selling of the pics is where the law can be differrent. And different at evert event, it's up to the organizer. There is that gray line between Public Domain and a permitted event. Some event planners control the media and some do not. That is the only point I ever tried to make. I give up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think the question, then, is do they have the right to control the media and from what I know, they most definitely do not. From my limited research, it appears that much of the legal precedent has been set in court by newspapers fighting for the right to publish pix taken in the public domain. In my limited legal knowledge, this seems like it could be the same as sales of a photo, since the papers are sold for profit.

Someone correct me if my assumption is wrong. I am gonna go read up a little more.

When I had my wedding my wife and I had our picture taken under a gazeebo outside the wedding hall (public domain). Subsequesntly the wedding hall owner saw the picture and wanted use the photo to promote the wedding hall. The contacted the photographer to ask if they could use his picture (he gladly accepted) but first called my wife and I to ask our permission to use the photo and release our rights to it, we said yes.

That crosses another line into promotion. If you own a photo of someone or a boat, you can sell it, but you cannot use it to promote a product without their consent. I threatened legal action against someone using a photo of my boat on their website for promotion, and they took it down. In that case though I also took the photo and they were using it without my consent.