Posting a famous person on iNat, did I make a mistake?

General
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I would like to expose a situation that occurred with a person who made a flag in one of my observations, I would like to receive a discussions, comments and others that could arise.

In short, I went to a Kylie Minogue concert in Santiago de Chile, it was totally amazing I was like 2 meters away from her, and that resulted in hundres of photographs, to inmortalize the moment, of course I did an Observation of her, im a biologist, and she is a female homo sapiens after all, she deserved a observation of her own :). (Im aware of what means posting a Human on iNaturalist) It was all fun, but a user made a flag in one of my photos, because it allegedly violated copyright rules.

“Image Rights (Personality Rights) are the legal protection a person has over their own appearance. In the case of a famous artist, this right has an intrinsic economic value (right of publicity). The Critical Point: Purpose of Use. In Brazil, at least, case law (court decisions) tends to distinguish whether the use of an image in a public place is: Commercial Use - If the photo is used to promote a product, service, or the platform itself (in a way that generates profit at the expense of the artist’s image), or to sell the photo. In this case, the violation is clear, and the artist is entitled to compensation, even if the photo was taken in a public place. Non-Commercial Use (or Informative/Scientific) - If the use is merely informative, biological (as is the primary purpose of iNaturalist), or personal, the risk is lower, but not zero. Although iNaturalist’s purpose is scientific/informative, the use of a famous person’s image, even if incorrectly categorized as Homo sapiens, may be questioned if the artist believes that: Their image was exposed in a way that harms their honor, reputation, or privacy. The context of the platform does not exempt them from the right to authorize any use of their image, given its notoriety and inherent economic value.
Classifying the observation as Homo sapiens (which is a taxonomic identification) does not constitute a crime in itself, but rather misuse of the platform (iNaturalist is for biodiversity observations). This is a miscategorization, but not a criminal offense”

This is the translation of here message from Portuguese.

What is going on? I dont get it. Is posting a famous person here in iNaturalist a copyright violation?

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As a practise on the site it does seem to be begrudgingly tolerated for some unknown reason, but really what does this contribute? If everybody that goes to a concert fills the site with pics of celebrities, politicans, friends, whatever, how is this valuable or meaningful data or use of identifier time?

Not commenting on the copyright violation portion, but just the general premise. The moment is probably better immortalized on your instagram account or whatever, rather than on a site for citizen science.

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If you ever come to the Netherlands, we have law, a portretrecht


Het portretrecht is een uitzondering op, of beperking van, het Nederlandse auteursrecht. Met het portretrecht kan een geportretteerde persoon zich in bepaalde gevallen verzetten tegen publicatie (openbaarmaking of verveelvoudiging en verspreiding) van zijn portret.

Could be, depends on the laws of Chile


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Brazilian case law is irrelevant unless the photograph was taken in Brazil or is used in Brazil. In fact that case law directly contradicts UK case law for example. UK case law is that if someone is in a public place with VERY limited exceptions photographs can be taken of them and used regardless of “image rights”. Inside a concert venue then that is not a public place and the rules of the venue/concert ticket take precedence.

So claiming a “copyright violation” for such a photograph shows profound ignorance of international copyright law on the part of the person making that claim. Besides “image rights” are NOT the same as copyright. The same as trademark or database right or patent or plant breeder right they are a separate form of intellectual property.

However if you are “aware of what means posting a Human on iNaturalist”, then why did you did it anyway? Doing so is essentially spamming the site and takes up resources with worthless “observations”. People generally don’t care if you think it’s “fun”, they think it’s a bad thing to do.

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If posting images of a famous person was illegal, most of social media would be struck with takedown notices every time Taylor Swift performs. As long as Kylie or her management don’t request a takedown (which they would be entitled to do, but is vanishingly unlikely in this noncommercial case) you’re fine. But as Joeb said, I’m not sure why iNat is where you want to document seeing Kylie - social media is a much better place for that.

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To post homo sapiens on iNat is not encouraged but allowed.
But

Every person has the legal right on his own picture.
This are two different things.

To post homo sapiens on iNat is OK.
But every homo sapiens has special rights and may not want to get posted on iNat, and that is also OK.
So if you post pictures of homo sapiens, and it is not a picture of your self, you need the legal consent from the other homo sapiens that you post.

There are also some special cases.
If a person is of public interest, they may can not disagree to get posted some where, may like with pictures from a wanted terrorist.
How ever, also people of public interest have a private life.

May the legal rights are also different from country to country, but mostly the basics are the same.

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Don’t upload humans to INat.

There is zero purpose for it and only leads to more issues being created.

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There is no copyright violation. You took the photo, so you own the copyright and can do whatever you want with it without violating any copyright laws. Personality rights are a completely different matter that iNaturalist is not concerned with (as iNat isn’t being used to market products or services). Although laws regarding Personality Rights can be quite restrictive (especially in Brazil which has some of the strictest in the world), no country requires consent for non-commercial use of pictures of public figures performing public functions in public (as you would expect). Even if you theoretically did violate Kylie Minogue’s personality rights, that’s a matter between you and Kylie Minogue’s lawyer. iNaturalist doesn’t have policies related to personality rights.

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by default observations of humans are excluded from the explore and identify pages, people are only seeing human observations if they choose to do so.

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To summarize the above: neither illegal nor useful.

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To quote Stefan:

For many iNatters, iNat is their only social media. This is usually probably a good thing, for many reasons, but in a case like this,

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An observation of human is probably most appropriate if is about our relationship with the natural world, like litter, damage, or help, or if it might be mistaken as something natural outside the human realm, like a giant fly sculpture. Otherwise, the internet is already overflowing with more appropriate anthropocentric sites dedicated to glorifying our species.

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The reason is probably because iNat’s founder likes to occasionally post photos of friends and colleagues as ‘‘Homo sapiens’’, and those observations add a bit of humanness (and sometimes levity) to what is otherwise a fairly staid and strait-laced website. Personally (as someone who uses iNat as their only social media), I enjoy these occasional diversions, provided they are only occasional.

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A single picture is really no big deal. People need to chill out.
Staff have posted group pics of the staff in the past.

Its different if you are a schoolkid or something simply misusing the platform to annoy others
but you are a power user and whoever flagged it is policing iNat wayyyy more than needs be imo. Better things to do!

But fwiw, google’s AI summary does say :
”In Chile, publishing photos of famous people without their consent is generally prohibited, according to Article 38 of Law Supporting the Rights of Authors, Composers, Artists and Researchers. The photographer holds the copyright, not the subject, so a celebrity cannot authorize the use of a photo they don’t own the copyright to, although they may have image rights. However, there are exceptions for photographs taken during public events or those involving public figures, where consent is not always required if there is no damage to the person’s honor or reputation”

I couldnt immediately find a source to support that
 so maybe that’s a hallucination though haha. But
there is also an interesting list of country to country variation in regards to photography of people. It does seem that Brazil is particularly strict in this regard:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Country_specific_consent_requirements

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A K. Minouge concert is mostly not a public place, you need to buy a ticket to enter the private area.
“Se castigarĂĄ con la pena de reclusiĂłn menor en cualquiera de sus grados y multa de 50 a 500 Unidades Tributarias Mensuales al que, en recintos particulares o lugares que no sean de libre acceso al pĂșblico, sin autorizaciĂłn del afectado y por cualquier medio, capte, intercepte, grabe o reproduzca conversaciones o comunicaciones de carĂĄcter privado; sustraiga, fotografĂ­e, fotocopie o reproduzca documentos o instrumentos de carĂĄcter privado; o capte, grabe, filme o fotografĂ­e imĂĄgenes o hechos de carĂĄcter privado que se produzcan, realicen, ocurran o existan en recintos particulares o lugares que no sean de libre acceso al pĂșblico. Igual pena se aplicarĂĄ a quien difunda las conversaciones, comunicaciones, documentos, instrumentos, imĂĄgenes y hechos a que se refiere el inciso anterior. En caso de ser una misma la persona que los haya obtenido y divulgado, se aplicarĂĄn a Ă©sta las penas de reclusiĂłn menor en su grado mĂĄximo y multa de 100 a 500 Unidades Tributarias Mensuales. Esta disposiciĂłn no es aplicable a aquellas personas que, en virtud de ley o de autorizaciĂłn judicial, estĂ©n o sean autorizadas para ejecutar las acciones descritas.”
ArtĂ­culo 161 A del CĂłdigo Penal
In private rooms you need consent of the people, famous prominent or not does not matter.

“El respeto y protección a la vida privada y a la honra de la persona y su familia, y asimismo, la protección de sus datos personales. El tratamiento y protección de estos datos se efectuará en la forma y condiciones que determine la ley.”
ArtĂ­culo 19 N° 4 der ConstituciĂłn PolĂ­tica de la RepĂșblica de Chile
The right on pictures of people belongs to the pictured people.
There are some exceptions in public area.

The copyright law of Chile is governed by Law No. 17,336, on Intellectual Property of October 2 of 1970 and subsequent amendments. It was implemented in the Decree No. 1122 of the Ministry of Education of Chile on May 17 of 1971.
This law aims to protect the economic and moral rights of Chilean authors and foreigners residing in Chile, granted by the mere fact of creating works that are literary, artistic and scientific.
It states that foreign authors who aren’t domiciled in the country enjoy the protection that is recognized by the international conventions that Chile has signed and ratified.
Although the law provides a list of protected works, it is not exhaustive.


Dramatic, dramatic-musical and theater in general, pantomimes and choreographic



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Chile

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I just looked at Human observations. It took 19 pages to get past the ones from Sep '25. At least half of them wouldn’t even have been interesting on social media.

[Edit] Although
 there may be a cryptid sighting hidden in the bunch.

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The legality of posting people’s photos on the internet without their consent depends on a country, but even in places where it is technically illegal, it’s not always enforceable. So legally speaking – I wouldn’t worry about it too much.

That said, since the first post was an invitation to a discussion on this topic, I’d like to add my two cents by asking “should we be looking at it from the legal standpoint to begin with?”

I think as a society we got too accustomed to seeing things as “okay since they’re not illegal”. Every time we go out into the streets or otherwise participate in society, we opt in by default into having our images/videos taken and shared for the world to see.

I, for one, wouldn’t want to become a Homo sapiens in someone else’s feed. And sure, if I come across a photo of me on the web, I can ask the admins to remove it and hope that they listen. But shouldn’t it be the other way? Can’t we as a society move past posting other people’s life onto the internet without consent? Not because it’s illegal or anything, but just because it’s a rude thing to do?

It gets a bit murky with celebrities at their shows, and depends predominantly on whether photography is allowed at the event to begin with, but then again, why post that to iNat? Based on publicly available data, there were more than 10,000 attendees at the Kylie Minogue concert in Santiago de Chile. I’m sure they all had a wonderful time and it’s a memorable moment for them personally, but does that mean that we need 10,000 observations of Kylie Minogue on iNat?

“But ursaw, not all of these people use iNaturalist”, you may say, and you’d be right. But more than 300,000 people attended her concerts around the world during the 2025 Tension Tour. How many of them use iNat? How many would like to immortalize her in an observation? What if we include all the other celebrities? Don’t they deserve an observation or two?

Based on a post in iNat’s blog from this summer, there are more than 400,000 observers using the site. Each of them uploads a selfie – that’s 400,000 Homo sapiens observations wasting space on the servers. Then upload a sibling; or a classmate, as kids often tend to do; or some photos of your family and friends because you went somewhere else and wanted to commemorate it
 How many observations of Homo sapiens do we get? And could we maybe not?

For observations of humans to be excluded, they need to be properly tagged as such. I identify Unknowns and see people there all the time. Adults and children alike thoughtlessly doxxing themselves and those around them. Granted, it is a very Homo sapiens thing to do. But I feel like we’ve got enough observations of that particular behavior already.

I understand that banning observations of humans altogether is not a viable solution to this problem, so I wish we’d all do our part instead and abstained from adding more unnecesary weight to that particular pile.

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I found the observation being discussed.

At this moment, there are 145,687 Homo sapiens observations. When I look at them in Identify mode, that’s 4850 pages.

To put it another way: if all 400,000 users each uploaded one Homo sapiens observation, it would be the sixth most observed species, behind only Mallard, Western Honey Bee, Asian Lady Beetle, House Sparrow, and Monarch.

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