Can photos of a model be put up on a site like this, if at the time of the shoot it was agreed the photos were for his portfolio and not to be sold to anyone. More than ten years have gone by and contact with the model is not possible. I wasn't sure how to answer this question so I thought I would bring it to the MM crowd.

If you are the photographer, you hold the copyright to your photos and can display them online if you wish. You aren't selling them here... just using them in another type of portfolio - so there shouldn't be any problems.

According to copyright law, the copyright lasts for the life of the author (or photographer) plus 70 years - give or take a few.

If these are another photographers images and he is trying to sell them... he may be breaching his original agreement or contract - assuming there ever was anything written down on paper and SIGNED to IN INK. If not, a verbal agreement might still be binding.

Without a signed model release for those images, you or your friend is risking legal action if they are sold without consent.

If you post the picture the worst thing that will happen is you'll get a "cease & desist" and have a limited amount of time to take it down... (even though you may be pushing the terms of your original agreement, the penalty is you would have to remove them).

Thanks guys, you pretty much verified what I already thought, just wanted to see if I was missing anything. Thanks.