Photographer webmasters, how would your respond to this...
 

Last spring we decided to experiment with making a transsexual site.

We hired a model, paid "her" (well), got "her" to sign a model release and made a little pay site using just "her" as the model.

Anyway lately we have been trying to advertise that site more and we have added a few reciprical links to adult search engines.

We just received the following email from the model (note that we do not link to ANY underage content):

******

How is it going. i see there is lots of links on my page, but i have a real problem with this,
You have put on links that are under aged teen sites. , and i will not be a party to it.
Please screen these before you put them on my site. and make sure they are of ts content only
Seeing i am not making any money from this like i should be, you must screen this crap.

******

We are thinking about selling the pictures we took of "her" to other webmasters and I can just see us going to court over it! We do have the rights to use these photos in any way we see fit and she gave up all her rights by signing our release. Just who does she think she is?

What would other photographers/webmasters say to this person? Would you just say "Go Fuck Youself!" ? :winkwink:

What country are you from?

What paperwork did she/he sign?

Has the paperwork been written by or checked by a lawyer?

How good is the content and how mcuh do you have?

Tell her to go to hell. You own the content, you run the site. Where did she get the idea that getting paid to model meant creative control? Had she asked, I might try to work with her... but this is just being pushy. Its bull.

About these "underage teen sites." If you don't have any, reassure the model this is the case.

Hit me up on
ICQ 45771964

I want to buy tranny content !

although he/she would probably be heated but if you remind him/her that they signed a contract releasing all the content to you for what ever you would do with it, fuck yes sell it and say Go fuck yourself!

don't even acknowledge "it's" inquiries or emails. Just ignore it.... Then it is the trannie's move... you will see if she has any.

You are ASSUMING the contract is valid and that he holds VALID contracts with ID checks etc on all content that he has.

Most are not aware you must hold paperwork for at least 10 years AFTER you close your biz in the USA.

If you are here in the states check out http://www.xxxlaw.net . I strongly reccomend using a lawyer to set up and maintain your biz who specializes in this field.

I find a negative response, or getting into a discussion about it just makes the problem worse. Provided your documentation is in order ignore the email. Chances are in a few months they'll write asking for more work and you can both engage in a polite fiction of never having sent and never having received the offending email.

Nice.

:stoned

Yeah, no sense in making the situation worse. If the tranny really believes you're linking to underage content, I'd reassure "her" that you are confident this isn't the case. If that doesn't work, then you'll know that this isn't the real issue, telling you to see what the real issue is. Perhaps the tranny just doesn't want her stuff getting around, in this case you need to politely remind her that she did it for money, got the money, spent the money, and now you are just doing the part that impelled you to enter into the transaction in the first place.

I would like to thank everyone for the help.

We live in Canada (BC) as does this model. For this shoot we used a modeling release that we found on the Faithful Designs website. I'm not totally sure if it was looked over by a lawyer or not unfortunately so this might cause problems.

We also have photocopies of her drivers license and some other goverment issued id (I don't remember what).

I guess we are going to need to start looking for Canadian lawyers before selling the content because I'm not entirely sure if the contract would be completely legally binding in Canada anyway. Does anybody know of a Canadian lawyer who is willing to deal with this kind of thing?

We wrote to the model and were not unkind at all. We said that we did not (and would not) link to any underage teen sites and we asked her what she was talking about so that we could correct the problem.

She answered already saying something about how her friend would tell her what he was talking about. She's not very computer literate.

Then she proceeded to threaten us (in a way) by saying that her friend was going to make another porn site of her because she "deserved to make money from this (????)".

She didn't sign an exclusivity statement with us so it is none of our business what she does. However now we are worried about her friend stealing our content and using it on his site.

Her penis is now cut off!!! I kind of doubt that the guy will just make a post-op site of her.

We'd better start looking for a lawyer NOW!

wow look at Kiko go. looks like some cool stuff you're been working on:thumbsup

The Asian stereotype of industrious techno wiz's is alive and well.

Look at the pics of Kiko in her laboratory.

That's an Asian nude MODEL. Can you imagine a Caucasian nude model doing the same thing? Nope. The only invention a Caucasian nude model might work on is making a bong out of a tampon.:1orglaugh

shes not making money off of it? you paid her right? cause if you didnt the contract isnt valid.... if you did they she already made her $ off of it. does your contract specify that you can either use the pics on the web or use them for whatever you want? if you sell the content or if she steals the pics and uses them you should see a lawyer.

Yes we paid her, we paid her $100/hour for the shoot.

I don't know what she's talking about. She seems to think that she should be making ADDITIONAL money from the site. We never told her that she would get anything from the site as a form of payment.

The contract states that we can do anything we want to with the pictures that we took.

I would send her a registered letter stating there is no underage links on the site and its not her site its your site. Restate that in the model release it signed away the rights to the pics for monetary compensation state the number you paid her. Therefore the model has no rights in the running of the site or what happens with the content.

Reason with her so she feels like you are listening... I'd explain that you are in this for business and not for fun and that you don't engage in any illegal activities and she has no reason to fear being connected w/ other sites, etc. etc. site legal precedent for linking -- blah blah you are in control -- just make her feel safe... Try to figure out why she contacted you... Maybe one of her friends said something about bad about the site... Maybe suggest that since she seems so interested in the site maybe she wants to do more content for less $ in exchange for a little more creative control, etc... maybe try to give her some options even if they aren't significant options -- maybe all she wants is a little validation.

Oh Jesus! Haha... That's so horrible... Maybe you helped pay for the operation :p

If anyone ever has a model sign a release where she doesn't give up all rights (rights to any more $, rights of approval, etc.) had better be doing it with some kind of superstar and with the help of an attorney. And yes, if you get a model to work unpaid, once you start making money on it, the release becomes questionable. One attorney told me to always pay SOMETHING ($1, $10) even with a model who seems to want to give away her time, and even for a model who is working for prints, because a print has an indeterminate value, but a dollar is worth a dollar.

A lot of people forget that in most places, a photographer owns the photos they take of someone. Period. A model release is good backup, and its nice to have something on paper. However, unless you violated their privacy by taking the pictures secretively or so forth, you own all rights to them even *without* a model release. You made them, she just happens to be in them.

Thanks Mutt! Well you know the Dragon Lady and Submissive Sex Slave stereotypes have been a little over exposed so I decided Asian over-achiever was niche for me:-) Danced all those years to pay for my education and look what I went and used it for? LOL

I'm amazed at this thread.

You started up a business without legal advise, you then went to another site to copy a model release. You then start to shoot trannies (well known for their mental and personal stability).

You then hit a problem that screams Talk to a lawyer. So what do you do?

You put a post up on a webmaster board.:helpme

If you are not making enough money to afford a lawyer you have little to worry about. If you are go and talk to one.

No one on this board has any legal training and without a site of the release is guessing.

Whatever.

We started making adult websites back in '97 and no we didn't have a lawyer then and we still don't now. It's never been an issue before this. I already said that we are going to find one before selling this content.

The model release was not stolen it was taken from a site that was offering them to webmasters. Other then the country problem why should we go to a laywer to write one ourselves when plenty of them are avaliable already? We have since switched to the one avaliable on http://www.adultsitelaw.com/ is there something wrong with THAT too?

I didn't really come here looking for legal advise anyway, I just wanted to post the message because I thought that the last line of her email was idiotic (and funny).