# If someone takes a picture of you (without your permission), who owns the picture? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 10, 2021, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-takes-a-picture-of-you-without-your-permission-who-owns-the-picture/946146 "2021-07-10T07:54:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2021, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-takes-a-picture-of-you-without-your-permission-who-owns-the-picture/946146/161 "2021-07-16T15:33:21Z")
Where i was replying to yours. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2021, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-takes-a-picture-of-you-without-your-permission-who-owns-the-picture/946146/162 "2021-07-16T20:20:32Z")
> The term “crime” has both a legal meaning and a layperson meaning. I think most laypeople would consider the acts that you can be arrested for to be crimes, even if they are not defined as such in the law. Sure, but even colloquially, I doubt anyone I know would consider a traffic violation a crime. It’s nit legally one where I live and it’s not conversationally one, either. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2021, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-takes-a-picture-of-you-without-your-permission-who-owns-the-picture/946146/163 "2021-07-16T21:25:29Z")
When applying to the Bar, they want to know everything civil and criminal–and really everything else too. I would assume that any admissions council in any state would look at a traffic violation the same regardless of how it is denominated. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2021, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-takes-a-picture-of-you-without-your-permission-who-owns-the-picture/946146/164 "2021-07-16T22:27:02Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > > The term “crime” has both a legal meaning and a layperson meaning. I think most laypeople would consider the acts that you can be arrested for to be crimes, even if they are not defined as such in the law. > > Sure, but even colloquially, I doubt anyone I know would consider a traffic violation a crime. It’s nit legally one where I live and it’s not conversationally one, either. In my experience, they do, but not when talking about what they themselves did. It’s more the term for them as a whole. I don’t really hear people use terms like “traffic violation.” But it’s possible it differs heavily by region. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2021, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-takes-a-picture-of-you-without-your-permission-who-owns-the-picture/946146/165 "2021-07-16T22:28:15Z")
Yeah if I asked someone if they or anyone else has committed a crime, there’s pretty much zero chance they will list a traffic violation as one. It may be the people I hang out with, I suppose. I have never thought of a traffic stop and ticket as a crime. Similarly, if someone talks about a city’s crime rate or an area being high in crime, nobody is ever taking traffic stops into account, in my experience. ---
**Author:** ![Franklymydear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a6a055/32.png) [@Franklymydear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Franklymydear)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2021, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-takes-a-picture-of-you-without-your-permission-who-owns-the-picture/946146/166 "2021-07-16T22:50:24Z")
> [@bdgr](#): > > If the police burst into someones house with a camera crew following, people can reasonably say they had an expectation of privacy in their living room. Additionally, when the cops people contract with the police force, some cities have required that faces be blurred under various circumstances. I had friend of a friend who worked for one those “Cops” type shows. His job was to get everyone on camera, whether it was the “perp” or people just standing around, to sign waivers so they wouldn’t have to blur the faces. His main goal was to get them to sign it for free, as in "wanna be on TV? a few bucks if it would help the drama. he would still try to get people in the background to sign off, but if someone wanted 100 bucks, they would just blur them out. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2021, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-takes-a-picture-of-you-without-your-permission-who-owns-the-picture/946146/167 "2021-07-17T05:46:26Z")
OK, this one really happened. I worked at a TV station 50 years ago, which recently aired an anniversary retrospective of some old shows. A colleague of mine taped it off the air, still-framed a close-up me, snapped it with his phone, and sent me the very nice photo. of his TV set. I posted it on my FaceBook page/ Who owns it? ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2021, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-takes-a-picture-of-you-without-your-permission-who-owns-the-picture/946146/168 "2021-07-17T14:06:30Z")
I would imagine that a photo of a frame of video isn’t transformative and so the copyright would stay with whoever held the copyright on the video. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2021, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-takes-a-picture-of-you-without-your-permission-who-owns-the-picture/946146/169 "2021-07-17T14:47:33Z")
Yeah, if you went out of your way to reproduce the video frame as clearly and as closely as possible, the principles of the _Bridgeman v. Corel_ decision suggest that new copyright would not attach. This is distinguished, by the way, from a photograph of a three-dimensional artwork like a sculpture, which does get copyright protection, because taking such a photo requires particular decisions about distance, angle, lighting, etc. You can’t reproduce a three-dimensional piece exactly in a two-dimensional medium. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2021, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-takes-a-picture-of-you-without-your-permission-who-owns-the-picture/946146/170 "2021-07-18T02:40:04Z")
Now that the question has long been answered and it’s in IMHO. . . When I lived in Japan, there was a TV special once (back in the early 90s) about Japanese women who liked foreigners; a tabloid TV sort of thing about how how shocking it would be that pure Japanese were being defiled by evil gaijin. They interviewed one woman, just graduating from college and who had gotten engaged. She said she had gone to Roppogi, a place in Tokyo where the mostly foreign guys hang out, just to meet a blond guy for the night. They helpfully blurred out her face, but not his. Turns out it was my acquaintance, and it caused no end to problems. First with his school because he taught kids and parents complained. Then the owner of the school got really pissed at him, but they were having an affair, and also his wife didn’t like it, either. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-takes-a-picture-of-you-without-your-permission-who-owns-the-picture/946146/171 "2022-01-05T19:23:09Z")
[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/Bsjp4rxFgIk/maxresdefault.jpg "Celebrities Sued for Posting Photos of Themselves") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bsjp4rxFgIk) Nice summary by Legal Eagle on this issue, that actually starts with the Dua Lipo case in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2022, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-takes-a-picture-of-you-without-your-permission-who-owns-the-picture/946146/172 "2022-01-06T03:56:41Z")
I’m [begging you nicely](https://vimeo.com/196937578) to _please_ turn your face away from my camera. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-takes-a-picture-of-you-without-your-permission-who-owns-the-picture/946146.md?page=8)