Keeping it Legal with Location and Artist Release Forms

Law, unfortunately, is not a science, much less an exact science. There is no legal equivalent to Avogadro's number or Planck's constant or the Pythagorean Theorem. No legal formulas are equivalent to the ones we videographers might use for determining f-stops, signal-to-noise ratios, or white balancing.

There are precious few absolute blacks and whites in the law--only shades of gray. In a way, this is not a bad situation. Indeed, if the law were exact, allowing all of us to predict the legal effect of every event, there would be no need for lawyers. And without lawyers, of course, we would have no lawyer jokes.

Philosophically, lawmakers and judges expect that the same law, applied to different factual situations, may result in different outcomes. This is true not only of laws relating to criminal cases or to contract disputes, but also of laws relating to videographers. Depending upon a number of factors, it is possible that your right to practice free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution--by videotaping people and objects, for example--may be outweighed by the interests of others. In other words, you can most often expect a judge to balance your individual rights as a videographer against the rights of others.

This article discusses some legal factors to consider as you make your next video. Specifically, you will learn to perform the balancing act that occurs when your rights as a videographer conflict--actually or potentially--with the rights of other individuals or of the general public. You will also learn how to minimize or eliminate such conflict, when possible, thus reducing the likelihood that you'll have to consult one of the aforementioned la…