How does Classmates.com get the rights to scan yearbook photos and publish work done by others?

Are you asking from the optic of a photographer who's copyright is being violated or a former srudent who's privacy is being violated?

From a photographers view, I have to assume they contact the schools to get the studios contact and work out an agreement.

As a student, you most likely signed a release as part of the year book agreement.

Am I 100% certain of this ... hell no! But anything else would leave classmates.com open to litigation. Also, I don;t think that their use of the photos constitutes commercial exploitation of a persons image but what do I know, I'm not a lawyer. :)

Some of the information here is not correct, and there are more than mass copyright infringement issues. Consider the ramifications of making information about young children in particular massively and easily available to predators.

The short answer is Classmates.com has NOT gotten the rights. I just verified that with one school this morning. And if you look at the parent company - United Online, Inc. - fraudulent business practice is nothing new to them.

What Classmates.com is doing does not fall under editorial use. It does not fall under fair use doctrines.

Assumption that students (and actually it would take their parents/guardians anyway) gave permission for usage is not accurate either. First, schools have handled the matter differently. Second, permissions for a yearbook published in a particular format does not automatically extend to future publishing or alternative means of publishing.

Another misconception is that the publishing company/printer owns the compilation copyrights. Jostens, for example, which is one of the biggest publishers/printers, does not own the legal copyrights for any yearbook for any school. According to them, the school has the copyrights and is actually considered the publisher.

Now, all of this being the case --- which is still a heavily abridged version of the appalling issues -- Classmates.com doesn't have a single leg upon which to stand with the exception, maybe, of very, very old yearbooks. They aren't obtaining permissions of compilation copyright owners. Even if they did, they haven't cleared all the legal hurdles given their are rights in some/many/most cases of individual elements within the compilation copyright (the yearbook). If every parent of every student; if every photographer and writer; and every school (or other compilation owner) have ALL given all permissions needed, then, and maybe then, Classmates.com would be legally safe for that one yearbook in question.

In regards to taking against them, yup. It would be cost prohibitive for an individual. But I've begun the process anyway, thinking as creatively as possible. Situations like this is where class action is needed because the class of people is too large to take action individually.

You know, that is a real good question. I think people send the yearbooks in, I don't think they have an arrangement with the publisher(s).

You just might have a case here. A big one.

Edit: I worked on the yearbook in high school and no one signed anything back then. If you had the school photographer shoot it you filled out the order form on the envelope. Nothing about rights there, and even in high school I knew to look. Many lawyers in the family. Seniors had their portraits professionally done and dropped off a print. Nothing was signed by the student. The school may have signed something when the book was sent off for printing. My feeling is that if a release was given, it would have been at this stage.

I noticed the classmates ad - they offer "Reprints" of old yearbooks. Might just be worth it to see what you get-an actual edition of the real one, or a reproduction.

Chris is right I think - the cost of suing would be prohibitive and unless you have a lot of images in that year book proving any kind of damages would be next to impossible. Big money wins. That being said, someone who shoots for a firm that shoots a lot of school photos and has done so for years, might have a actionable complaint. It would cost though $$$$$$

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Classmates.com Yearbook

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RE:

How does Classmates.com get the rights to scan yearbook photos and publish work done by others?

How do they get the right to publish people's images without their consent?

It is considered editorial use, therefore permission of the people in the images is not legally required.

As far as the copyright issue goes, they must get permission from the copyright owner of the yearbook publisher. They can probably do that for little money since the yearbook publisher sees it as bonus income from books that were published in the past that would not normally generate any income at all.

This is clearly not an editorial exception. It is copying others work and selling it. As the head photographer of my senior yearbook I took over 300 photos in the book. Sometimes it was my own film in my own camera. Transportation was at my expense. I could not have been considered an employee for a number of reasons. So the copyright on my published work has been violated.

Yearbook Classmates

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