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The buzz hit major media and the international press Wednesday through an Associated Press story, indieWIRE did a feature piece Tuesday, amNewYork did a full color cover, we have hundreds of blog reactions, and our local WCBS radio had the story in heavy rotation using snippets from your Video Comments and Julianne Cho of the Mayor’s Film Office defending required permits for amateurs. Keith Olbermann at MSNBC named Ms. Cho and the people at MOFTB “Worst persons.” We don’t even know what that means exactly - we just want to preserve our right to take pictures of New York without having to ask permission from an office set up to deal with Law & Order shoots and Hollywood blockbusters.
Photo Credit: I.M.Bitter
- posted Wed., Aug 1, 2007 at 6:48pm
- filed in About Us
- [9] Comments
August 1st, 2007 at 6:05 pm
08-01-07
Cho’s decisions will effect the larger world.
Even if it isn’t Julianne’s Cho’s desire to put restrictions on first amendment rights — as perhaps influenced by terrorism concerns from other departments — many other cities will automatically believe it to be so, & quickly follow in NYC’s perceived footsteps lockstep fashion. That’s the power a great city of the world has on everyone else.
There’s a responsibility NYC has to be aware of this & not to blithely initiate new laws created in a few hidden moments enacted without a full honest public airing — while continuing to pretend that what happens here won’t soon be happening everywhere as a result. As loosely as now described the DNA of that law may be interpreted in many ways & likely made far more restrictive with arrests, not only of filmmakers/ photographers but the public. What’s next cell phone cameras? The proposed restrictions for most indie filmmakers are bad enough but a NYC precedent will be cloned & used perhaps for even harsher definitions elsewhere under the guise of — if NYC does it — it’s basically right for us to copy — & either with or without a law.
Cho seems to have blinders on with her expressions of innocence & naivety in desiring to make things better. She’s obviously from what’s stated no appreciation or awareness at all of the huge creative reality of the NYC underground art world of hundreds of thousands & students that’s existed practically forever — & how her rules will contribute to destroying decades of creative personal precedent. In reality — no matter how well meaning, She’s a bureaucrat — avidly wanting to expand her own base of power — & the very opposite of a creatively driven artist. In other words — a left brained person. Her concerns rotate mostly about rules, formal film companies & money. Her department is commendable & am sure she’s excellent at all this from what I hear. But likely her rules should apply to film companies of a certain size but not attempt to tame the spontaneous creativity of the most truly creative part of society in NYC.
In reality I don’t imagine many officers standing with a stop watch counting off precisely 10 or 30 minutes. The reality is many police empowered by their own personal sense of the law will likely react instantly to put emotional pressure or worse on anyone to immediately desist. What recourses there may be are all unknown. Just look at some disturbing recent events in NYC as noted on www.pictureny.org.
Once put into effect this will all become an ever enlarging tidal wave of repression spreading out in true draconian fashion in the US — all set in action, even if unwittingly by Margaret Cho.
Bill Rabinovitch
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:03 am
The tripod permit law has been arbitrarily enforced in Manhattan at least since 1983 when even shooting from a car parked on 5th avenue at noon during the week with 1 camera facing the Guggenheim for 15 minutes attracted cops to enforce the privacy rights of the museum.
Back then the equipment was fairly conspicuous. I recall a guy with metallic hot pants and a backpack rig that had a mock 14″ satellite dish mounted on it who produced the original GIRLS GONE WILD show on channel “J”, the catv channels infamous for Robin Bird, who would certainly be a target for today’s 21st century the brown shirts.
Bloomberg and LGBT Christine Quinn letting this and so much other police state regulations and legislation get off the ground seems counter intuitive, but perhaps their true allegiance is to fascist ideology where the US CONSTITUTION is an obstacle to implementing an AUTHORITARIAN AGENDA.
Is there a link between this and banning “My name is Rachel Corey” from NYC?
Ya, think?
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:55 pm
I am a native of Mexico City. I just learned about this from democracy now show. This is outrageous! I lived 2006 in Brooklyn NY and I have some amazing pictures from Brooklyn and Manhattan. I would like to help your cause here in Mexico city, cos what happens to one city can happen to all or any of them, I want to synchronize I photo show of NYC here in DF with a protest over in NYC, could someone point me a person or organization that I could do this with?
All the best to the artists in NYC!!
Libertad!!!!!!
Teseo Fournier
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:37 pm
Is there any way people can protect themselves from filmmakers and photographers who take their pictures without asking permission and often without their knowledge? Does the 1st Amendment mean that photographers and filmmakers have the right to make unwilling people become models and subjects for their artwork, even if they have no desire to be? I’ve lived in New York City for over 20 years and I can’t count the number of times someone has stuck a camera in my direction without having the decency to ask.
August 3rd, 2007 at 3:18 am
While it is at times unfortunate that people unwillingly make it into other people’s art, projects or the like, I believe it is something else altogether to say that they dont have the right to be out in public areas creating and doing what they love (or just do). For to me, not having the slightest personal inclinling for that oh so American documentary impulse, it is a small price to pay for something that gives others so much value. Further, when I walk out the door in the morning, I feel it is only but another’s right that they should be able to share in this world I live, even if that means that I should occassionally find myself in their’s–the world we tacitly agree to live with them when we choose to live in a crowded, urban environment (and of all places NYC).
Further, it just does not make much sense for a photographer or filmmaker to have to bog themself down–as well as inauthenticate the work–by trying to do what is really impossible anyways; to get everyone’s consent.
Besides, even while some part of me agrees that it would not hurt those documenting an unwilling participant to be a little more decent at times, what kind of a law is this, anyways? If one thing is certain, it is that this law surely was not designed to address this issue.
But if you really feel driven to protect yourself from such personal intrusion, you could wear a mask around everywhere–though that would probably end up attracting more unwanted attention that way. (It is also worth noting that the hand has many valuable functions.)
August 3rd, 2007 at 4:19 am
wish u all the best
August 3rd, 2007 at 6:36 am
I wish you luck in preserving the First Amendment. Thing is, you’ve allowed them to destroy the Second Amendment. Rights need to be enforced. Without the Second, providing the tools for that enforcement, the First is pretty much dead meat.
August 3rd, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Well to answer Michael’s question;
In a public place you do not have an expectation to privacy. That means that is someone is filming in a public park and you walk through their shot or happen to be there that there is no legal recourse for you. The only legal recourse would be if they used you picture to sell products like, “This guy supports Dell”, but other than that no. That is because we live in a free society, and I would rather put up with that than to live in a world where the freedom of the press is restricted.
And lets be honest, much of this rule is meant to give the cops and excuse to break up protests and not to protect the people. I mean they are putting up CCTV cameras all over the city, so what makes you think you are not on camera in most places in NYC anyway?
August 9th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
So if I’m caught in a personal, embarrassing or tragic situation and someone with a camera decides to take a picture of it and let thousands, maybe millions of people see it, that’s interpreted as a right protected by the first amendment? The photographer’s right to use my image and make money off of it is more important than my desire to not be a part of someone’s art work? Is that really what the first amendment is all about?