I was attending a seminar the other day of an invited speaker (on micro RNAs—cool stuff), and several of our grad students were snapping pics of some of the slides, one or two of the faculty as well.
I was brought up that you absolutely do not take photos or video of someone’s unpublished data without their consent. It’s rude, and it discourages scientific communication. My solution would be to ask the presenter ahead of time if s/he would allow the ppt slides to be saved for anyone interested. If yes, then no one has to take pics while listening. If no, then everyone knows not to take pics for sure. Either way, no more photos in the seminar room.
At least these days almost everyone’s phone is good enough in the dark that there are no distracting flashes, but that’s not really my point.
So what do all of you think? We have different professional fields represented here.