Google street. Can I get pics removed ?

weegie.geek

patman99 wrote: »

(may even get a discount on my insurance too)

:rotfl:

My back's aching this morning, but that's cheered me up.

isofa

The thing that many people are missing is that a photographer cannot just take pictures of the general public and use them in commercial or publically shown work, unless they obtain a signed model release from the people involved. This makes crown shots in towns and so forth so problematic, that most agencies won't accept these type of pictures at all. When you go to a sporting event you are agreeing to appear on TV or in photos - and the T+Cs are listed on the ticket/programme.

Also this applies to well known buildings, you cannot take photos and then use them in similar projects without obtaining a release (which may or many not cost money) from the building owner or manager, in the UK and many countries. Just as a random example: the Eiffel Tower - there are strict laws on the reproduction of it lit at night, only a handful of images have ever been approved to be published.

Which begs the question, are the photographers by Google actually legal?

I appreciate that faces are being blurred, and personally it doesn't bother me - as Marty says, if you walk down the street, you have access to the same imagery but "live". Still an important point of privacy / legality re. Google.

geewhiz

I've got no problem with me or my house being on google but they had left my car number plate readable when everyone else in the street had their's edited out, I contacted them and they initially removed the whole picture but now it's back and the number plate is blurred.

While this wasn't a big deal I'm impressed that they've done all this within a week of it being reported considering all the complaints they must have had, the google car has also been round again for some reason !

Stompa

Quasar wrote: »

Well I have no children but I wouldn't be happy that they were photographed outside the house that can be traced down to the very street. Any old pae*o would know there are children there, as you would practically giving them the address. Ok I accept that the risk is not very high, but it is totally unnecessary to take it.

What a load of tripe.

Marty_J

isofa wrote: »

The thing that many people are missing is that a photographer cannot just take pictures of the general public and use them in commercial or publically shown work, unless they obtain a signed model release from the people involved. This makes crown shots in towns and so forth so problematic, that most agencies won't accept these type of pictures at all. When you go to a sporting event you are agreeing to appear on TV or in photos - and the T+Cs are listed on the ticket/programme.

Also this applies to well known buildings, you cannot take photos and then use them in similar projects without obtaining a release (which may or many not cost money) from the building owner or manager, in the UK and many countries. Just as a random example: the Eiffel Tower - there are strict laws on the reproduction of it lit at night, only a handful of images have ever been approved to be published.

Which begs the question, are the photographers by Google actually legal?

I appreciate that faces are being blurred, and personally it doesn't bother me - as Marty says, if you walk down the street, you have access to the same imagery but "live". Still an important point of privacy / legality re. Google.

In the UK, buildings aren't copyrighted. You can take all the pictures you like. The plans and blue-prints are of course protected, but the buildings themselves aren't.

Also, there is some legal precedent for saying that taking pictures of a street with people in it is a very different thing from taking pictures of people in the street. I believe Google Street View is doing the former. The people are not the subject of the photographs; their inclusion is incidental.

DatabaseError

Quasar wrote: »

Well I have no children but I wouldn't be happy that they were photographed outside the house that can be traced down to the very street. Any old pae*o would know there are children there, as you would practically giving them the address. Ok I accept that the risk is not very high, but it is totally unnecessary to take it.

I hadn't considered that...now you've got me really worried.

Maybe we should contact google and get them to remove all the images of schools...I'm sure there will be kids there...maybe even pictures of kids in the playground..I can just imagine now all the !!!!!s looking at pictures of my little boys playing football, something they couldn't do before this newfangled google-mappy-thingy.(the !!!!!s, not my boys...who managed to play football before google maps)

To the [STRIKE]idiot[/STRIKE] person suggesting they'd get google to remove their entire house...the interwebz is full of sites linking to google map anomalies...a 'hidden' house would soon be found, and its address published, leading to far more attention than it would get as another anonymous house.

When I finally get to rule the world my 1st ruling will be that anyone who considers the daily mail to be a newspaper be beaten to death with a copy!

//grumpy that human evolution has obviously peaked..and is now in reverse...and accellerating

Marty_J

DatabaseError, I'm sorry I can only click the thanks button once.

darich

Marty_J wrote: »

In the UK, buildings aren't copyrighted. You can take all the pictures you like. The plans and blue-prints are of course protected, but the buildings themselves aren't.

Also, there is some legal precedent for saying that taking pictures of a street with people in it is a very different thing from taking pictures of people in the street. I believe Google Street View is doing the former. The people are not the subject of the photographs; their inclusion is incidental.

Exactly right.
Otherwise every sports photograph in a stadium would require a model release signed by every identifiable person in the shot. Including the players. There is no definitive law that says th at photographing people in a public place is illegal and that means that Google are breaking no laws at all even if they do gain commercially from those images.

Check out this link and read the 2 page pdf file therein.

Isofa claims that it's illegal to take images of the public and show them. That may well be the case but if the public are only a small percentage of the image then it the image is not of the public and the law doesn't apply.

It's a nonsense to expect privacy when walking down a public road in full view of everyone. It would be completely different if the images were taken with a telephoto and the images showed people in their homes where it would be reasonable to expect privacy.

darich

Many people forget that unfortunately, there are many nasty people in every town, many of whom know their area well. The fact that google street view might direct someone from a far away place to a particular house isn't a disaster - there are many many equally nasty people living nearby who don't need street view and indeed are probably too illiterate to make full use of it.

darich

geewhiz wrote: »

I've got no problem with me or my house being on google but they had left my car number plate readable when everyone else in the street had their's edited out, I contacted them and they initially removed the whole picture but now it's back and the number plate is blurred.

While this wasn't a big deal I'm impressed that they've done all this within a week of it being reported considering all the complaints they must have had, the google car has also been round again for some reason !

I'm curious as to why if this wasn't a big deal why did you want your number plate removed?
Unless you remove the plate whenever you park the car and it's in full view of anyone who passes by, why are you concerned that someone miles away, like me, would be able to read it?
Do you drive around with your plate covered/hidden? why ask for it to be removed from street view?

I don't want the above to sound as if I'm having a go - i'm not and if it does then i apologise. I'm genuinely curious why you wanted it removed.