Thread: Media Rights...

So I'm sure that other people have had this issue before.

What do you do if you previously danced in a group and they continue to use photos of you or videos of you to promote the group? This might be flyers, videos of the group performing, or general photos.

If there was never a contract signed giving consent to use these items do they have any legal rights to continue to use them? Do I have any legal rights to ask them to stop? and how would I legally go about doing that?

Thanks!!!!

If there's no model release, it might come down to who owns the photo. The photo user will likely say you voluntarily agreed to participate in their photo. You may feel that you have allowed them to use your image for their benefit.

A friendly conversation is obviously best if possible. Its a sticky situation. There must be legal professionals on bhuz who can give the current legal guidelines.

You could start by simply expressing your concern and asking them to stop using your photo. I know this can get hard when you have groups shots, especially!

I think my old troupe started having members sign a model release form at the beginning of each year, which I think is a great idea. Personally, I would also document the choreographies done for the troupe to keep a record of who owns the rights to the choreos and what the troupe's permission to use them is.

thanks ladies. These were my thoughts as well... :/ hmmmmm

Why would they want to use photos and videos of former members to advertise? Wouldn’t they want to have up-to-date images? I could imagine using group photos if most of the members were still in the troupe and they were recently taken, but solo pictures would be weird.

I think Sabrina and Lara are right – just ask them to stop using your pictures/videos if it bothers you.

I had a former student use photos of my troupe (including shots of me) on her website with the inference that we were all her students. She asked some of the students for permission, but not me. I wasn't too happy. But she did take them down.

Originally Posted by Karnak

Why would they want to use photos and videos of former members to advertise? Wouldn’t they want to have up-to-date images? I could imagine using group photos if most of the members were still in the troupe and they were recently taken, but solo pictures would be weird.

I was publicist for my former troupe for a few years- I'm still on the board so I tend to say we!
Getting good, professional quality, publishable photos that show a full range of what the troupe does is challenging and is often a good 6 months behind where we are at any given time. A photo of the last time we had a good photog at a show where we did a sword dance could be 2 years dated and still be an accurate representation of what the troupe has to offer, even if a specific dancer is no longer with the troupe.
It's also nice, from time to time, to celebrate our history as a troupe. On the website, we list and have photos of dancers who have been part of the troupe in the past because we are proud of those dancers who have moved on and remember them fondly. They are part of what made us who we are and we want to recognize that. If someone had a problem with that and asked to be removed, we would probably take down their individual profile, but if it is done with taste & proper acknowledgement, why would you want something like that taken down?
(Yes, I know there can be reasons, like someone not wanting their dance persona findable on the web for personal/non-dance professional concerns. Also, don't know the specific situation which inspired the OP, just answering the question of why a troupe might legitimately want to use dated photos )

I think there can be a fine line between preserving the historical archive of your troupe online and looking like you were too cheap and/or lazy to get the photos and web site redone after someone left. This is an issue of balancing someone's feelings against the needs of representing the group as a contemporary entity. Maybe it makes sense for it to be standard policy that the departing member and the troupe director discuss this issue when the person leaves.

Dancers stop being in a troupe for lots of reasons: moving away from town, having a falling out with another member, just feeling like it wasn't the right thing for them any longer. If the person wants to stay on in memory as part of the troupe, it's rude to go through like a Stalinist purge and make it look like they never existed, but if they feel the group no longer represents them, it's not right to hold them virtual hostage in pictures either. There really isn't one answer that works for all situations.

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

I think there can be a fine line between preserving the historical archive of your troupe online and looking like you were too cheap and/or lazy to get the photos and web site redone after someone left. This is an issue of balancing someone's feelings against the needs of representing the group as a contemporary entity. Maybe it makes sense for it to be standard policy that the departing member and the troupe director discuss this issue when the person leaves.

Dancers stop being in a troupe for lots of reasons: moving away from town, having a falling out with another member, just feeling like it wasn't the right thing for them any longer. If the person wants to stay on in memory as part of the troupe, it's rude to go through like a Stalinist purge and make it look like they never existed, but if they feel the group no longer represents them, it's not right to hold them virtual hostage in pictures either. There really isn't one answer that works for all situations.

how do you define contemporary, and what is a reasonable amount of time? Was the break in the last few months? In the last year?
Cheap & lazy? Really? for not having pictures retaken the instant someone leaves the troupe? As an individual, I still use older pictures of me that are good, even if I don't have that costume any more or have put on/lost 20 pounds. It is not a misrepresentation of who I am to use those photos (unless I am using photos 15yrs out of date as a primary image!) Using photos for a year, possibly more, to represent something the troupe does is not unreasonable. From the troupe perspective, it's not about whether the troupe represents the individual but whether the individual photo represents the troupe.

I have photos of my class which I use for promotional purposes. We took the photos at a special class and we had release forms for those photos. I still use them 3-8 years later, even tho those students have moved on or changed in various ways. It still represents what I am doing.

My former troupe also hosts community events like community recitals, so we even use pictures of non-troupe member performers for events. We have different purposes for different photos, we're using them ethically, not claiming so&so was part of our troupe if they weren't.

For the troupe, it makes sense to keep using certain photos even after a member has left, and it's not AT ALL about being cheap or lazy. It would be helpful if all troupe members & former members consider this as well as their own needs. Obviously, abuse of photo use can occur, but it is not unreasonable for troupes to continue using a dancers image in certain contexts after they leave. It doesn't automatically make them the bad guy, doing something unethical.

This is why I do think troupes should use model release forms. The conversation about expectations needs to happen *before* someone joins the troupe, not meet with someone as they are leaving.

Originally Posted by Lara L

how do you define contemporary, and what is a reasonable amount of time? Was the break in the last few months? In the last year?
Cheap & lazy? Really?

I'd say media that is five to ten years old is too old, unless it is part of a larger archive. If you want to have the entire history of every gig your troupe ever did online, I think that is wonderful. If you feel the best performance of your life happened in 1997, so you want to put that clip online along with the one from last year, great. But if you consider yourself an active business, then I don't think it's unreasonable to expect content that is within the last five years, perhaps more recently if there is a good reason. Wouldn't it be macabre to advertise your gig packages under a picture of a troupe member who was deceased? What if the member who left your group flounced to create her own troupe and web site, and she's now competing against you for business?

You can get away with some older PR, and archives are a separate situation, but there's a point where your media is too dated, especially if you're tagging it with specific, non-recent dates. (Ever been to a troupe site that has photo galleries like "2001 Fall Workshop," "2003 Spring Show," "2004 Christmas Hafla," and...nothing more recent? What happened to them? Is this still a valid site? Are they still an active group?) I don't expect instantaneous updates for every fluctuation in appearance/membership/repertoire, but there are a lot of musty, outdated web sites online, and, yes, I think it does look like you're too cheap or lazy to respect your customers with an accurate portrayal of who you are, when it looks like you created a web site during the first term of G.W. Bush's presidency and you haven't updated it since. It makes me wonder if you have a blog that petered out after only a couple of entries in 2007, too.

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

I'd say media that is five to ten years old is too old, unless it is part of a larger archive. If you want to have the entire history of every gig your troupe ever did online, I think that is wonderful. If you feel the best performance of your life happened in 1997, so you want to put that clip online along with the one from last year, great. But if you consider yourself an active business, then I don't think it's unreasonable to expect content that is within the last five years, perhaps more recently if there is a good reason. Wouldn't it be macabre to advertise your gig packages under a picture of a troupe member who was deceased? What if the member who left your group flounced to create her own troupe and web site, and she's now competing against you for business?

You can get away with some older PR, and archives are a separate situation, but there's a point where your media is too dated, especially if you're tagging it with specific, non-recent dates. (Ever been to a troupe site that has photo galleries like "2001 Fall Workshop," "2003 Spring Show," "2004 Christmas Hafla," and...nothing more recent? What happened to them? Is this still a valid site? Are they still an active group?) I don't expect instantaneous updates for every fluctuation in appearance/membership/repertoire, but there are a lot of musty, outdated web sites online, and, yes, I think it does look like you're too cheap or lazy to respect your customers with an accurate portrayal of who you are, when it looks like you created a web site during the first term of G.W. Bush's presidency and you haven't updated it since. It makes me wonder if you have a blog that petered out after only a couple of entries in 2007, too.

Yep, I'll agree with all of this. & that IS relevant to the OP's question too- how long ago did she leave the troupe? If someone left the troupe 2 weeks after a $400-$800 photo shoot and asked to be removed immediately, I'd probably agree on the condition that she pay for the shoot

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

Dancers stop being in a troupe for lots of reasons: moving away from town, having a falling out with another member, just feeling like it wasn't the right thing for them any longer. If the person wants to stay on in memory as part of the troupe, it's rude to go through like a Stalinist purge and make it look like they never existed, but if they feel the group no longer represents them, it's not right to hold them virtual hostage in pictures either. There really isn't one answer that works for all situations.

That's what would get me. If a troupe is selling themselves based on someone's name (or if that person thinks seeing their picture on the site might be the selling point for getting the group hired when they otherwise wouldn't be), or if the troupe is competition and the dancer is well-known enough that people might wonder why s/he is dancing for a competitor, or if the troupe has gone really bad in some way (their dancing sucks, they've become strippers, they sacrifice kittens onstage, whatever), then I could see not wanting one's image associated with them.

Otherwise.... so a dancer leaves a troupe. It's still a part of her/his history. That's never going to be erased, and hopefully the dancer taken something away from it even if the troupe isn't a good fit anymore. I have people in my past that I'm no longer friends with... we live far away, we grew apart, whatever. They're not my friends now, but I wouldn't deny having been their friend once or be angry if they still have pictures with me in them. Hell, the split with my ex was very nasty and he is, in my mind, equivalent to the wrong end of a camel that recently ate a stack of White Castle burgers, but he was once a part of my life and if asked I wouldn't deny it, nor freak out if he still had pictures of the two of us on his Facebook or something (I'd wonder why, considering that he professed to hate me, but that's a different situation anyway). I'd still list every voice/violin teacher I'd studied with on a resume, even if one was long ago and I was at a very different skill level then, because they were instrumental to my development.

Especially if it's clear that the photos are older ones and may contain past members.