Arkansas Senate Passes Bill to Make Street Photography Illegal in State

[LiberalArkie]

https://fstoppers.com/news/arkansas-senate-passes-bill-make-street-photography-illegal-state-65704




Over the past week, Arkansas Senate has been working diligently to pass SB-79 - known as the Personal Rights Protection Act. While the bill is designed to protect the privacy and rights of the citizens within the state, it also effectively makes Street Photography illegal from viewing or taking in the state of Arkansas.

The bill's full name does a lot as to explaining the bill. Entitled “To Enact the Personal Rights Protection Act: and to Protect the Property Rights of an Individual to the Use of the Individual’s Name, Voice, Signature, and Likeness”, this bill is designed to take an individual's Rights of Publicity to an extreme, by allowing it illegal for them to be photographed or filmed on public grounds without a written consent.



As the ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers) explains --

The implications of this bill are staggering. For example, an image showing recognizable people posted to the Internet for a use that would not require written consent anywhere else in the world could leave you open to a lawsuit just because someone in Arkansas could view it online.

SB-79 places an unprecedented burden on all photographers whose work could be viewed within the state of Arkansas to either get explicit consent from every individual whose likeness appears in all of their photographs or risk defending themselves in a lawsuit where they will have to shoulder the burden of proving the use of their photographs qualifies as an exempted use

Snip

Note: The bill appears to ban any photo, video or picture which does not written permission from every person, group or organization depicted in the picture, photo or video.

Gee that national strategy of only spending money on national elections is working out quite well.

[phantom power]

1. Is the actual agenda to make it illegal for citizens to film police?

[libdem4life]

3. Yes.

[Frances]

4. That was my first thought

[LiberalArkie]

6. And to prohibit filming city council meetings, prohibit filming occupy protests

since you would have to get permission from the building owners being displayed.You have to have written permission from every person and every organization being shown. It indicates that a video shot in Paris France could not be shown in Arkansas if permission off all bodies in Paris are not available,

[salin]

7. how does one enforce that?

monitor every computer/tablet/smartphone in the state of Arkansas?

[msongs]

11. the gestapo has a lot of influence in government nt

[Politicalboi]

2. When are the RED States seceding?

Too stupid to be part of the US.

The implications of this bill are staggering. For example, an image showing recognizable people posted to the Internet for a use that would not require written consent anywhere else in the world could leave you open to a lawsuit just because someone in Arkansas could view it online.

WTF?????????

[sdfernando]

5. I would think the state fish-wraps would be up in arms about this.

[packman]

8. The stupidity is deep on this

There goes all parade pictures, no more group pictures of any kind, concert pictures, etc. Do they even think these things out? Of course, as pointed out in above posts, it's all about taking police pictures .

[Dont call me Shirley]

9. Let's see, now I get to add Arkansas to the list of never-visit states,

Indiana
Arizona
Texas
Kansas
Georgia
Alabama
...

[yuiyoshida]

15. I think I could be happy

just staying in California. Though, I wouldn't mind visiting Hawaii, Oregon and Washington State. But, who can afford to travel, these days

[Dont call me Shirley]

19. CA is good traveling!

New Mexico is a good trip too.

But yeah, too expensive to travel these days

[hifiguy]

10. I cannot imagine how this will be constitutional.

[snooper2]

18. It's not at all.....

doesn't stop stupid people for passing stupid laws

[kelliekat44]

12. Really, they just don't want any photos of police brutality. nt

[d_r]

13. no google maps of Arkansas!

[yuiyoshida]

17. Yeh...

on all Satellite maps it will be blanked out, kinda like North Korea.

[Binkie The Clown]

14. Carry a gun? No problem. Carry a camera? You're under arrest! n/t

[Rex]

16. This will help law enforcement out, but not in a good way toward citizens.

Now it will be illegal to record cops beating the shit out of someone.

EDIT - matter of fact, now it will be illegal to record criminals breaking into a store! HAS anyone thought about the total implications of this law? So now all security cameras will have to be taken down and discarded?

This is a crazy law that should NOT be found in the Land of the Free(tm).

[ChisolmTrailDem]

20. Apparently none of the responders to this OP bothered to read the link or check further on

...Arkansas SB79's status:

Update -- 3pm EST March 30th

As a result of the public outcry of Bill SB-79, Governor Asa Hutchinson has chosen to veto the bill in question. Along with his action of vetoing the bill, Gov. Hutchinson released the following statement --

"In its current form, the bill unnecessarily restricts free expression and thus could have a chilling effect on freedom of speech and freedom of the press. In addition, SB79 exempts certain types of noncommercial speech while failing to exempt other forms of noncommercial speech. The absence of these exemptions could result in unnecessary litigation and suppress Arkansans who engage in artistic expression."

Verifying source: http://www.thv11.com/story/news/politics/2015/03/31/gov-hutchinson-vetoes-sb79/70726652/

Oh, and the OP for some reason left the update out of the OP.

[LiberalArkie]

23. Just posted on Arkansas Times a little bit ago...

Gov. Asa Hutchinson has vetoed SB 79, a bill that was intended to "protect the names, voices, signatures, photographs, and likenesses of the citizens of the state from exploitation and unauthorized commercial use without the citizen’s consent."

After reviewing the bill, Hutchinson apparently agreed that the bill was too broadly written. In a statement, he said:

“In its current form, the bill unnecessarily restricts free expression and thus could have a chilling effect on freedom of speech and freedom of the press. In addition, SB79 exempts certain types of noncommercial speech while failing to exempt other forms of noncommercial speech. The absence of these exemptions could result in unnecessary litigation and suppress Arkansans who engage in artistic expression.”

The bill was authored by Sen. Jon Woods (R-Springdale) and Rep. Greg Leding (D-Fayetteville). Leding said earlier in the session that it was prompted by the family of Frank Broyles, concerned about the potential use of his likeness for commercial purposes.


http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2015/03/31/bill-that-may-have-hindered-public-photography-vetoed-by-hutchinson


Note: In all the talk about the bill it was always people stealing the likness of Arkansas people without their permission. I believe there was another motive behind it.

[Baclava]

21. we are ready!

[Liberal_in_LA]

22. wow

[LiberalArkie]

24. In other Arkansas News

To pay for the capital gains tax cut, which you might remember exempts gains of more than $10 million, the Arkansas legislature has proposed to cut library funding by nearly 20 percent.


http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2015/03/31/hell-with-books-the-rich-need-a-tax-cut