World Subjectright Foundation

Subjects for those interviewed by the popular press

Automated ubiquitous surveillance has reached into nearly all facets of our daily lives. Examples illustrating the need for Subjectrights include Sheraton Hotel's recording video of workers as they changed clothes in the company locker room, and surveillance cameras and automated imaging systems, made in ever smaller packages, with increasing automation, making it easier and easier to capture image content without the need of a skilled photographer or system operator.

The failures of leglislation, and of privacy doctrine, suggest that a new approach is needed.

Subjects in the media

There has also been an evolution in the simplicity of image capture, from a time when it required great skill to capture pictures, to the present day when image capture is being more and more automated:

At one time, a picture made by a painter required many long hours of hard work, combined with a great deal of skill and experience. Such a portrait can be said to have been truly made by the painter, and the subject may not even actually exist (e.g. the subject could come completely from the painter's memory, imagination, or a dream).
With the advent of photography, it became easier to capture the soul of the subject. Although it still required some degree of skill, and preparation to set up the apparatus, take the picture, and process the result (chemistry and development), the portrait of the subject could not exist without the physical presence of the subject. Therefore the subject, at least partially, must be credited with the generation of the portrait.
With mass production of photographic apparatus, picture taking became a simpler art often involving just pressing a button (e.g. Kodak's slogan "you push the button, we do the rest"), so that the amount of effort required by the photographer was significantly reduced.
So-called "point and click" digital cameras are getting more and more sophisticated to the extent that even a complete idiot can take an award winning portrait, capturing the right moment by chance, sometimes with or without a small degree of skill. What often makes many of these portraits powerful is the commonplace candour of the subject. Often a haphazard or naieve composition only adds to the allure of the finished image by way of what the subject brings to the finished result.
With the advent of EyeTap technology, e.g. devices that causing the eye itself to, in effect, function as if it were a camera, taking a picture no longer requires conscious thought and effort. The thought-reading camera developed at the University of Toronto in 1998 now means that all we have to do is "look and think". Thus we often construct wonderful portraits of people by complete accident (e.g. forgetting to turn off the record function).
Finally, automated surveillance cameras have no human operator, and rely entirely on machine intelligence. Thus the heart and soul of portraits made by these systems rests entirely with the subject.

Therefore we question the validity of copyright ownership in image data other than by the subjects depicted in the images.

Moreover, subjects of particular interest (inventors, scholars, etc.) are often photographed repeatedly for various newspapers and other media, simply because of copyright issues. One day a subject may pose for a New York Times article, and the next day the same subject will need to pose for a Globe article simply because the Globe cannot secure rights to NY Times content. This causes excessive wear and tear on the subject who needs to pose for many different photographers on various occasions. Although the photographers (or newspapers) often claim they want to impose their unique style of photography, this is often just rhetoric to mask the real reason, e.g. the desire for a unique copyright of photography. Subjectright solves this problem by granting rights in the picture to the subject, so that the subject can grant others rights that save the subject time (e.g. save the subject the need to continue to take valuable time away from research in order to be photographed again and again). The subject simply requires the photographer to agree to a rights sharing principle, which will allow the subject to use the picture in later works.

World Subjectrights Foundation is comprised of individuals who believe in self-ownership. Scientists, inventors, and others who frequently are asked to pose for pictures, should seriously consider joining World Subjectright Foundation and licensing their physical likenesses under Subjectright (S). Humanistic Property protected by Subjectright (S) may be licensed to private corporations, or to governments of countries who comply with treaties for refraining from theft of Subjectright Humanistic Property.

Download the Subjectrights Agreement form for media appearances.

See the first examples of media appearances conducted under Subjectright (S).

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