Would the release be my responsibility?

My brother-in-law will be performing in a comedy show tomorrow night in San Francisco. He is going to be one of many people that will be doing short pieces over the course of an hour or two. I am familiar with, and have met, the guy who sets up and hosts these shows. I mentioned that I would be happy to bring my camera and take shots of the show during the course of the night. My brother-in-law and the host seemed very excited about that since they'd never had a photographer at their show before. I told him I'd just shoot a bunch and provide the host with a disc once I'd edited out the garbage. I'm notlooking to make any money on this and I thought it would just be cool for my bro and his friends to have some nice images from the evening. I've never shot in a really low-light club environment before, so I figured it would be great practice for me as well.

They just e-mailed me and asked if I had a standard release form I could bring and have everyone sign. I guess the host said he might want to use some images from that show in future flyers/marketing materials, which I'm fine with.

So my question is, if I hand over a disc of images from the evening, and HE is the one that decides to use them for future commercial use, am I responsible for getting releases signed, or is he? I thought I would do this as a fun favor for these guys, but if I have to walk around with a clipboard having people sign releases all night, it may just be more trouble than it's worth.

Thanks in advance for any advice and/or insight you can provide!

My understanding is that if you were doing this for free, you would not need to get releases, but that the club would have to if they wanted to use them for promotions later. If you do it, just be sure to advise them that they will need releases if they want to use them for anything other than personal enjoyment. In fact, write that down somewhere and give it to them so you can be sure you have covered yourself.

If i took the pic's, I would play it safe and get the releases myself, then if he needs a copy of the release i would give him a copy. pos

If no release is signed and he uses it for advertising and someone doesn't like it you could be sued too. Even if you just give it away.


So think of it this way, you give away a $1000 worth of work and get sued for $10,000. Sounds like a fair deal to me.