Isabella_deL said:
I do think people need to bear in mind that anything with a models face on it is copy written by her. It is automatic. You cannot take pictures of people and sell them without that person signing a release form.
Not necessarily true, in America. People have their pictures taken, and sold without their knowledge or consent all the time, and it is perfectly legal.
As to the copyright... it's not as simple as your face is on it, it's yours.
Copyright law is never cut and dry anymore. It's fairly muddy, often in ways to help big media producers, while fucking over the little guy. A good example is the recent Jonathan Coultan version of Baby Got Back used on Glee. Sure, Glee's producers paid the standard rights so Sir Mix-A-Lot would get his revenue as the original copyright holder; But absolutely no credit was given to Jonathan Coultan for his arrangement of the song, no permission gained for using it, and Fox simply said they were legally allowed to do it. It turns out there's a separate 'derivative work' license to be used when doing something like JoCo did with Baby Got Back, even though he paid the licensing fee to distribute his cover. So, legally, he has no claims to his own work on the song in terms of writing the new music and changing some lyrics. The only legal thing he can do, is if Glee used his actual sound recordings as the musical track (since he released a karaoke version of the song), then he can sue the shit out of Fox and Glee because he does maintain copyright on his own original recordings.
So, in terms of camming... the contract models sign explicitly states they give up all claims of copyright on their streams on the site they are working for, and that the streams become the property of the site. Anything streamed on the site through the models cam that is not explicitly copyrighted (video, music, etc.) becomes the property of the site. Most sites also mention to not have movies/TV/music on your stream because of this. There's a whole slew of potential legal problems when it comes to claiming that other work as your own because of the contract.
So, even though your face is on the stream, you hold no copyright over what is on the stream. The site does, and every model streaming has agreed to this.
Essentially, all models on any given site are streaming as 'work for hire.' Work for hire explicitly grants the copyright to the person doing the hiring. As an example, if you go to a photographer, and hire him/her to do photo shoots for you, then your contract would have to explicitly state that it is work for hire, and the photographer cannot claim any copyright and all rights revert to you. Without that in writing, then technically because the photographer took the photos, even if paid to do so, he/she can still claim (at least partial) copyright. That's why for my promo, that some ACF girls gave videos for, that I
explicitly stated that all copyrights for the videos would be turned over to me as a work for hire. Now I just need to finish my Dead Space 3 review so I can get to editing the promo...
Now, anything you create, yourself, that isn't a work for hire? That's yours, automagically. If you record your own videos (not recorded form the stream on the site), take your own photos, etc., they are yours and all copyrights belong to you.
If, let's say, you and I were in the same area, and you snapped a picture and my face was in it, I have no legal grounds to claim copyright, because you took the picture. Even though my face is clearly visible, I have no legal grounds to stand on. If you took a video, and I walked through the shot, same thing. I have no legal grounds to stand on to claim copyright. The photographer/videographer holds the copyright, provided they are not working for hire for someone else. There are some cases where releases would need to be signed, but those have dwindled in recent years.
It might be different in the UK, though I doubt it. There's still tons of tabloid pics of celebs sold without permission of the celebs in the UK, as an example. And they're perfectly legal from what I have gathered.
Even with my own work that uses copyrighted material (my game reviews) I have to state in my copyright notice that
only my original content (the review, the voiceover, if I put any video of myself) is copyright to me. Everything else is used under fair use for the purposes of review, but remains the property of the copyright and trademark holders. But, under the Fair Use Doctrine, my use of the copyrighted work owned by others is protected when it is used review or editorial purposes. It's why reviewers can use experts, footage, etc. from work they are reviewing in their reviews and not get sued for copyright infringement.
To be clear, the Fair Use Doctrine holds no sway over nor grants any protection to people recording the streams and posting them on forums/tube sites. It is very specific in what it covers. I'm sure the UK has something similar for reviews/parodies protection, but it would also not grant any protection to anyone recording streams off a cam site and then reposting them elsewhere. But the capping of video from streams to share, or reposting bought videos to share is not fair use.