Topic: Photo use ethics?

[flipp]

Anything in an EPK or on a band's website is promotional material for you to use, completely clear.

Anything people have uploaded to Facebook (public pages), Flickr, Tumblr, etc. is there for the taking through the EULAs of those sites--and if a photographer comes after you for $$ you are firmly grounded in saying it was uploaded for public use. It would be a courtesy to credit the photographer, and you should probably do that, because...why not?

Screen grabs of Youtube videos, not so much. Youtube gets away with crazy things because the muscle of Google is behind it. Using those as a smaller business could be a PITA.

All bands should provide something usable to the promoter. They're inept if they don't.

While you may be firmly grounded in saying it was uploaded for public use you may still be violating copyright. Only if it was the photographer who uploaded it would you have a leg to stand on and even then you may not have the right to use an image royalty-free. I know one of those upload sites (I believe it is flickr) has the ability for the photographer to retain all, some or none of his rights. I'm not sure about other photo-upload sites.

I am not a lawyer so can not give legal advice but I have had some photos of mine used in a commercial release and had to deal with licensing issues before the release.  Thankfully one of my siblings was a representative/agent for several commercial photographers and I followed their advice - I consulted a copyright attorney. That advice I can thoroughly endorse - consult an attorney. I say that because copyright law is not common sense nor is it what you think it should be; it is very specific and mostly incomprehensible to me and many of my preconceptions about the issue were wrong. If you follow the advice you get from an internet forum then you are just as wrong as those posting what they "think" copyright law is. To be absolutely sure you have covered all the bases (and your ass), consult an attorney.

[2manyrocks]

copyright law is not common sense nor is it what you think it should be; it is very specific and mostly incomprehensible

Amen.

[earmonger]

Sorry, what I meant was that original content--a page owner's own photos--that's uploaded to places like Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr, etc. is generally being made public through all the rights they foolishly signed away when posting it.  I haven't seen rights claimed on Flickr images but I would hope that Flickr makes them clear during a download.

But if it's a screen grab or a scan or some other copy of someone else's copyrighted image, then that's messy, yes.  Use your judgement and steer clear of anything that looks worrisome. You can probably find something else that's clearly usable online.

And as others have said, the band should have its visual promo act together. Even if it's a handful of smartphone snapshots.