I learned something interesting about images this week. There is not a concern apparently in relation to showing the image of a public figure without obtaining a models release.
The reason is that world leaders and politicians become somewhat public domain and represent more than just themselves in an image of them (ie George Bush the citizen ceased to exist the minute he took public office and he now is an icon of the United States), (This must be true or Michael Moore would be out of business as I am sure W would not have signed a model release form for him). :lol:
This would also apply to say rock stars - you are allowed to use an image of them that you snapped on the street, but as they say in the warnings before a concert no photography is permitted. Thus you could never obtain an image of a band playing - legally and distribute it. The only exception here is it can not be used to endorse something of course
The only concern as per the video Gillian has posted is taking an image that another photographer has taken rather than the concern being the subject. This too is kind of interesting - someone can correct my terminology but there is something where you are allowed to take images from film and include them in other projects - I belive it is called "Aquisition" or aquiring or something akin to "sampling" in music. Here the laws are interesting but very different than music. According to the news I heard this week you can sample images as still frames from copyrighted material - so it may be safer to take an image of George Bush from a commercial than taking a photo that belongs to CNN
Overall for copyright (and I know we have had this discussion before John, but to repeat myself for the post) I fell very strongly that you should borrow all that you want as you are producing your project. This frees you up to get exactly the message across that you want at a zero budget. As the project nears completion and you think you may have something that could end up being distributed then begin to sub out the concernnig audio or images with fully authorized material. If you try to create everything yourself from day one you will slow the creative process.
Gillian: I see now that you were trying to be positive with the leaders images at the end - I misinterpreted it as a hopeless reminder of who brought us all here and why should we see the same people bringing us out of it? I am usually a glass half full kind of guy
guess I got that one wrong