Robert Rolf wrote:
> Tamas Rudnai wrote:
>
>   
>> If you view the map od San Francisco or LA with Google Maps then you can
>> click on [Street View] and if you place the little man on the street map you
>> will see the street view as a 360 degree interactive photo - even of clearly
>> identifiable faces of people and registration plates. Is that legal in the
>> US?
>>     
>
> They are in a "PUBLIC" space, so they can have no expectation of 'privacy'.
> Anyone can take a picture in a pubic space, and no laws are violated.
> If there were laws being broken, you can bet celebrities would be suing the
> asses off the paparazzi.
>
> R
>
>   
You are actually partially mistaken in this regard....

In a public space you are normally (there are exceptions) allowed to 
take photographs at will, but you are not allowed to get commercial gain 
from someone else's likeness unless they have signed a release form. So, 
taking photographs is fine, but selling people's images is not. I'm 
searching for some references.....

Here's a good one.

http://www.danheller.com/model-release.html

In Summary, legal or not illegal are sort of blurry (actually, it is not 
about criminal law at all, and only loosely falls in to commercial law), 
but, anyone who's face appears on the map pages may attempt to sue 
Google for part of Google's income that is derived from their likeness. 
Google has most likely just got to blur out that person's face, or 
simply re-take that picture, and they are in the clear without having to 
do anything more, and likely the only thing that it will cost Google is 
legal fees (which will pretty much be nothing because this will all be 
dealt with long before it ever sees a court....). i.e. The way it will 
work is that Joe Blogs will see their face on a map page. They will hire 
a lawyer for $500 bucks, who will pen a long letter to Google saying 
"please pay my client $xx for having his face help Google make money". 
Google will respond with "Ohh, sorry, didn't know his face was in there. 
It's gone now, what next?". And, that will pretty much be the end of it. 
No lawyer will let a client try much more than that because it is pretty 
pointless.

It is about pragmatism... Google can be a whole lot more pragmatic than 
a person who's face appears in an obscure place in a picture....

Rolf



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