John Francis wrote: >I think their lawyers could well argue the fault lies with the >original publisher (who in this case would be the photographer).
The end publisher and the original photographer can share liability, which is why it's a good idea to *always* get a signed release from models, just in case. What's interesting here is that the original photographer (who put the photo on Flickr with commercial licensing) is one of the plaintiffs suing Virgin! But you raise another interesting point: The definition of "publishing". Generally it's taken as a given that putting your own photos on your own web site (for promotional purposes, for example) does not constitute publication and therefore doesn't subject the photographer to publisher liability. Printing in a magazine or a billboard certainly does constitute publication. What about posting to a site like Flickr? In other words, is Flickr a "publisher"? By the way, even even if Flickr *is* considered a publisher, in the USA providers of online services are specifically exempt from publisher liability under the Communications Decency Act (of all things). -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
