At 07:17 PM 4/8/2004 -0700, you wrote:
> > Does anyone know of some web resources on legal issues surrounding
> > audio recording? Specifically accidentally or intentially recording
>
>The phrase "reasonable expectation of privacy" comes to mind, but that's
>just a neuron firing.
>
>I've always been more interested in the ethical issues myself; as someone
>pointed out I believe on the phonography list, legal issues are in almost
>every case only likely to come up if someone stands to make money --
>either because of copyright issues, or via a lawsuit claiming damages for
>some harm.
>
>Of course your question is at the heart of the latter -- but I
>wonder, what are the differences here between civil and criminal law?
>Ie are there broad categories of "insult" to an individual that are
>grounds for damages in a civil suit, even if you don't break any criminal
>law...?
>
>How much difference is there from country to country? I'd be curious if
>Dallas Simpson had encountered this issue in his own work...
>
> best,
> aaron
>
>
> http://www.quietamerican.org
While teaching photography from 1970 to 1980 I ran up against complaints to
the police when I was making shots in suburban or urban areas and people
could see a strange long lens. A policeman once said he had to investigate
a complaint that I was "photographing girls". I assumed the heart of
these complaints was the phallic image on a lens more than six inches long
and just plain unfounded fear, and in every case I won the argument with
the cops by: 1. responding calmly and professionally, 2. pointing out that
30% of the people in for example downtown Concord, MA, were clearly
carrying cameras and snapping them repeatedly, 3. that 50% of the people
who were in each photograph statistically are "girls", and 4. that "if you
can legally BE there, you can legally PHOTOGRAPH there."
Never more urgently than at this time, however, the police and security
people are publicly admonished as never before to investigate "anything
suspicious" and boy! do we ever spend a lot of time looking suspicious!
But I do record with the same basic legal assumption, that "if you can
legally BE there, you can legally RECORD there." Now if you think a 12
inch lens draws attention, try an eighty pound 48" parabola and view-camera
tripod at 6:30 AM on the edge of a parking lot!
A lot of these issues come down, not just to "rights" but to courtesy and
taking time to identify and explain yourself politely, no matter what
recording the inquisitive person has just ruined. It helps a lot to allow
the worried person to listen, live, through your earphones. Then they can
HEAR that no particular secret conversations are being detected by the
outrageous apparatus. Some even get hooked on birds or frogs!
And Aaron is correct: legally GETTING the recording is one thing, What you
can legally DO with the recording is quite another. If, hypothetically, as
background to a goldfinch recording you get a conversation the is
"interesting", as long as it goes unnoticed into your archives no
problem. When you decide to use it for coercion or money in any manner you
are potentially in deep trouble.
I send my best regards,
Marty Michener, MIST Software Assoc. Inc., P. O. Box 269, Hollis, NH 03049
Spring has sprung, the grass has riz. Wonder what kind of grass it is?
Graminoids - a new book for naturalists to identify sedges and grasses.
http://www.enjoybirds.com/HomePublishing/PubHome.htm#gram
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