THOMAS HAWK explains the right one has to snap photos of public spaces, even when those public places happen to be occupied by private people. You can snap and store those things you see. Artists have done this for ages. You may encounter issues when you sell on photos bearing a private personage or when you profit from the image of an object belonging to another. It bugs me whenever I enter public space in Ireland--spaces often funded with my tax--and see signs warning that photography is prohibited. "For security reasons," they tell me inside Kilkenny Castle. I haven't been escorted out of the castle for images of the place that receive frequent visits in my Flickr photostream. "You can't take that picture," a sales assistant told me in a Berlin shop. "The store layout is copyrighted." Right. So I shot the inside of the premises from sidewalk outside. No copyright seal appeared on the resultant photo.
Thomas Hawk -- "Photography is still not a crime"
