Legal Question in Entertainment Law in Alabama

Childs Photo Published in People Magazine without permission

My wife and three children won backstage passes to a very popular female singers concert. The singer would pose while one of her assistants used your camera to take a photograph of her with the fan. However, an unknown photographer in the back was taking pictures and two weeks later my son's picture is in People Magazine. In the photo my 3 yr. old son is giving her a kiss on the cheek. No one ask our permission to publish his photo. His name was not listed, but the city and state was. This photo had a caption that stated something like, ''???? kicks off her concert with fans in Birmingham, Alabama''

How can they publish his photo without our permission? We assumed she used the photo as publicity to show her concert to be ''kid friendly'' and sort of like the kissing politician, what a great person she is. Of course it didn't say that she refused to given give him an autograph. Would we have a suit against her and/or People Magazine?

Thanks,

JM


Asked on 2/09/05, 10:33 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Robert Kreitlein Robert Kreitlein, Attorney at Law

Re: Childs Photo Published in People Magazine without permission

Hmmm, well, offhand I'd say that's a tad iffy. Generally, you can prevent someone from disseminating your likeness in photographic form if your privacy was invaded to get the photo. I'm not sure how much of an expectation of privacy one has backstage at a concert. On one end of that spectrum would be someplace completely private, like your home; and on the other end would be someplace completely not private like a city park. Backstage at a concert falls somewhere in the middle there. There are alot of variables that go into legal questions like this one, such as: how many people were invited backstage, how secluded it was, what kind of environment it was. Privacy is a complex area of the law. If you want, email me with some more details about who all was backstage, how big a space it was, etc. and I'll do a little research and try to give you a better idea about what the current state of the law is regarding invasion or privacy and any other claim you might have.

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Answered on 2/10/05, 10:10 am


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