Now this is interesting. According to the Copyright Action website:
Legally, permission exists on private land unless and until prohibition is notified.
(I'm not posting a link because I've already posted three links to that site and the mods will send the boys round if I post another! If you want to see the original page - and it's well worth it - just copy and paste that sentence into Google. It was the top result for me.)
Now if this is true (and, like others, I'm no lawyer) then going back to my White Cliffs scenario, I have permission to take photos for any purpose, including selling them, until such time as someone approaches me, identifies themselves as an employee of the Trust and informs me that I don't have permission. They could try putting signs up but there'd have to be an awful lot of them and they'd have to be certain that the signs had not been vandalised or defaced.
I'm going to the Farne Islands next week (I think I might have already mentioned this once or twice
) and it'll be interesting to see if there are any signs or other notification that commercial photography is forbidden. At this time of year huge numbers of photographers go to the Farnes (when I booked I was told that May half term is by far the busiest week of the year) and a huge number of the results end up in stock libraries. If the NT is successful in making this policy stick then the boat operators will be in serious trouble and the Trust's income from landing fees will plummet as the photo-tour companies will look elsewhere.
Unless, of course, photographers just ignore the Trust's policy. If I get any decent shots that I think are worth the effort of uploading I will simply set the location to be "Northumberland". Or possibly even "Yorkshire" to throw them off the scent. (With apologies in advance to any proud Geordies!) As I said above, this is not because I'm too tight to buy a licence at a reasonable cost - I fully agree with Pete's point that maintaining places like the Farnes as prime habitat costs money - but because, as far as I can tell, the Trust will not sell me one. Their loss!
One other point that will almost certainly need lawyers to unravel at great expense to all concerned, is exactly what constitutes "commercial" photography. Here's an interesting quote from the page I'm not linking to...
"Generally, 'commercial' has been understood to mean advertising, marketing, merchandising - the sort of usage that requires a property release, not just permission of the landowner. (Anyone who doesn't understand the difference, please see the FAQ section of this site).
That does not include 'editorial', 'reportage', 'documentary' or 'art'. Just because at some point now or in the future a photographer may be paid for a reproduction in a magazine or a print does not make it 'commercial' in the traditional industry sense of the word."
Dave P.