Keeping Your Visual Content in Check.
More than ever, considering how you manage photos for your school and your community is important because it involves consideration to your policies related to data security, privacy, publicity as well as content ownership.
Thousands of photos are taken throughout the school year by staff, students, and families. These photos visually document the school experience and student learning both inside and outside the classroom. And all these photos are intended to be shared – they are your school stories.
To make sure everyone benefits from this content, let’s make sure you’ve considered the rights of your community in managing everyone’s photos in a responsible and respectful manner.
What is Copywrite?
Photographs are generally regarded as “artistic work” and are governed by copyright. A copyright exists from the moment a photo is captured. The owner of the copyright is not the subject of a photo; it’s the photographer. A copyright allows us to give credit to work and is generally governed as intellectual property under regional federal legislation, such as the “Canada Copyright Act” or the “US Copyright Law“.
In Vidigami, the uploader of an image is attributed ownership of the media and has the right to receive credit for it. They may add their name to the media as “Creator,” add their name in the Copyright field so it can be affixed to the image, or they may prevent the image from being downloaded or replicated by adding a watermark. Each school can decide how this applies to their students, staff, and families.
What are the Privacy Rights?
Photographs are generally regarded as “artistic work” and are governed by copyright. A copyright exists from the moment a photo is captured. The owner of the copyright is not the subject of a photo, it’s the photographer. A copyright allows us to give credit to work and is generally governed as intellectual property under regional federal legislation, such as the “Canada Copyright Act” or the “US Copyright Law”.
Growing data privacy legislation has been adopted by governments around the world since the European Union’s General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) came into effect in 2018. Data privacy law highlights photos as sensitive personal data or personally identifiable information (PII). This means that photos need to be protected securely and users have the right to give and revoke consent over access to their personal information.
Vidigami provides every user with the ability to give and with hold consent to any photo shared. Users may opt out so any tagged photo can be automatically unshared. Users may flag a photo because it’s simply a “bad picture” or they can restrict consent so that their image are not used in social media.
What are Public Rights?
Publicity rights govern the use of an image for marketing or commercial purposes. A person’s right of publicity is violated when it is being used for commercial purposes without their permission. For example, a school requires explicit consent from a student and their family if the student’s photo is used in an advertisement for the school.
With Vidigami, consent is managed for every user. No publicity rights are granted to members of the community. When a photo is downloaded, a notice appears reminding the user that the image is for personal use only and should not be shared publicly. Consent permissions are assigned to each user so that any use restrictions can be highlighted and observed.
A school can use consent levels to ensure a user has given permission. For example, by default, all users have a consent level of “unrestricted” when added to Vidigami. The school can include in their Authorized Use Policy wording that explains this. Parents that do not want to give permission for their child’s photos to be used outside of Vidigami, can request a more restrictive consent level be applied to their children.
