On 13/09/2011 03:31, phoebe ayers wrote:
there are images in debatable circumstances (beach: public or not?)
In France there is a jurisprudence regarding photos of monuments and other public places worthy of photography.
It states that you are allowed to have non consenting people on your photo, provided the focus is clearly on the monument and not the person.
The reason for that is that in such places it would be impossible to ask the numerous people to move away, so if you were to apply the consent rule then you would have to forbid hundreds of thousands of tourists to take the photos, or you would have to manage law suits from hundreds of thousands of tourists who didn't want to be on the photo.
So basically the courts assume that by being present in a public space, you tacitly give your consent to be anecdotally present on the photo.
The rule then would not apply to the photo mentioned by Fred Bauder, because the place is not touristic and the persons are clearly in focus :
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/wiki/File:TalkingintheRoad.JP...
That jurisprudence is also applied in most other countries. For example you can find many photos of Jurmala, a famous sea-side resort in Latvia.
So to answer directly to Phoebe Ayers, a beach is public, provided the photo focuses on the beach and not on particular people.
Your right to privacy does not supersede the right of other people to take photos of interesting places.
Arnaud