This study deals with the standard to protect the right of portrait in photojournalism.
Man has an inherent right to prevent others from using pictures, photogaphs or drawings of his portrait without his consent. Photojournalists should be sensitive ...
This study deals with the standard to protect the right of portrait in photojournalism.
Man has an inherent right to prevent others from using pictures, photogaphs or drawings of his portrait without his consent. Photojournalists should be sensitive to the feedbacks and reactions from their audiences.
Today, the right of portrait has been established as part of the legal right of privacy in a number of countries of the world. Meanwhile, there has been an increasing number of cases reported involving the invasion of the right of portrait by the mass media.
Man can also lose his honor by a photograph of his face which published by newpaper, magazine, advertising, or television. The mass media usually want and try to justify their free expropriation of pictures of peoples in news reports or advertising rely on the pretext of the freedom of the press.
It poses an important qustion : how to reconcile the two conflicting inerests, the freedom of the press and the individual's right to protect his image against any arbitrary uses.
The right of portrait is the right not to be photographed and published without consent. The legal concept of the right of portrait has been developed in Germany. Today, in many countries, the civil laws prohibit the arbirary shooting and reporting one's portrait without the prior consent of a man pictured.
In Korea, the enachment to protect the right of portrait is requested urgently. It must contain the concepts of the right of privacy and the right of property. Sometimes, there are conflicts between the photojournalist's right of expression, the citizen's right to know and the individual's right of portrait. It should be decided by applying the standards as the principle of the balance of interest, the theory of the abandonment of right, and the theory of public ontology.
If there is not any evident reason, the right to know of people should take precedence. However, one's personal life and right should be guaranteed and guarded sufficiently.
Infringement of the right of portrait by news photography would rather be dealt with as a civil compensation than a criminal punishment in the legal action. A criminal punishment for a journalist need a careful study because such a punishment may produce a side effect to shrink an essential freedom of the press and the individual rights of photojournalist. The civil action to protect the individual human rights is more reasonable than the criminal punishment.
Ultimately, the photojournalists must develop the high sense of responsibility and morality. The self-regulation is better than the control of criminal or civil laws, or of the state organizations or of the courts. Today, it is the age to solve the infringement of the right of portrait not by control organization, but by the morals and responsibility of each journalist.