Are you a photographer? or are you a model? and have you ever heard about model release form? Okay, if you are a photographer and as a model or even not both of them, nothing is wrong to know further about model release form, because you may find this name in some places. So, in short, Model release form is a legal document between the photographer and the person who is own the property of photographing. Therefore, if you want to publish a picture which has named, you have to do a model release.

Since a model release form is a written form of their permission that allow you to publish their image on your blog, website, and marketing things. You have to make a letter of permission which is needed by two sides; the photographer and the one who owns the property. Model release letter can be in many types or kinds because it can be made as your need, it will be better if it is as simple as you can and give enough space to sign the letter.

Why do you need a model release form?

So, if you have a hobby of capturing a model or things and so on, should you need a model release form? Yes, of course. If you pay attention to the two laws number 19 and 20 to protect you about copyrights. Beside that in that laws as the photographer, you need to ask permission to the model or the one who has the property before publishing it.

When do you need a model release form?

A model release form is needed every time or every day when you captured a model or a thing which owns that property. In fact, a model release form is not for a professional model only, but also for the thing or property which owns it. It will be better, if you always ready to prepare a model release form while you are capturing the thing, then ask the owner of the property to sign it. Whether a model and the owner of the property should be paid or not, it can be done by negotiating together.

Is a model release form just used for publishing?

If you captured many pictures which kept in the hard disk or just in the flash disk then you may not to make a model release form. But when you captured a model or a thing which is used for exhibition or commercial thing, you must make a model release form because as stated before that it can protect you from the laws of copyrights.

Below is the model release form template for Microsoft Word you can use as your reference.

  Model Release Form Template (13.7 KiB, 596 hits)