Yes, but it's got nothing to do with copyright. The states have various laws under the catigories "Right of privacy" and "Right of publicity" that control this.
Basically, if you're going to publish a picture of someone that hasn't already been published and might be offensive to the person, you *really* need to get a model release. Otherwise they can sue you into oblivion.
All proposed Orphan works laws would have no effect on this.
(Note that it's the wife who can sue, not the copyright holder.)
Re: Hypothetical situation
The states have various laws under the catigories
"Right of privacy" and "Right of publicity"
that control this.
Basically, if you're going to publish a picture of someone that hasn't already been published and might be offensive to the person, you *really* need to get a model release. Otherwise they can sue you into oblivion.
All proposed Orphan works laws would have no effect on this.
(Note that it's the wife who can sue, not the copyright holder.)