So the issue of copyright being owned by the photographer is more or less settled, it has to be agreed upon in a contractual manner and for most purposes the one paragraph blurb from our MRs should do, but must be signed before the shoot. I hope I am getting it right.

There is a problem in signing before the shoot, though, as there is a clause that the model posed without coercion etc, which can be signed only after the shoot. So should there really be two documents, one settling copyright, the other actual MR, former signed before, latter after the shoot? Obviously signing after would be unacceptable to photographers, for obvious reasons. So we have another problem.

e.g.

"Model hereby affirms that all poses, positions and situations enacted in the Photos covered in this release were entered into without force, coercion, or threat whatsoever, and were posed freely by Model with Model's full consent. Model further agrees to hold blameless and free of all accusation of such force or coercion Photographer, his legal representatives, assigns, and those acting under his permission."


And only then it goes back to the question of usage rights by the model (sublicencing etc ), which seems not be settled at all and seems to be even more messy (studiouk36's comments above)

It wouldn't be my choice to even, or ever, include such a statement ^^^ in a release. It is really not the subject matter of a release in the first place.

Even the copyright assignment language you may use and prefer, and is necessary in the Canadian context, and similar language but for different reasons in the UK, is not the subject matter of a release per se though it can usefully be included in one without harming any other element of the release or calling into question the validity of the release.

There are things that are properly included in a release and things that are not e.g. licensing language. These other issues, such as licensing and data protection disclosures [possibly also required in Canada,] are better dealt with in separate documents for several reasons.

Releases themselves are best kept clean and on point, containing releasing language relevant to things that need releasing, [image, personality, privacy, and publicity rights,] and nothing else.

Studio36

And addressing all these for a 2 hour TF shoot would be too much trouble so  we will go back to our one pagers that have  worked so far - although a bit wiser and more conscious.