Life in the World, Part III

I think you can probably get the gist of this article from the first paragraph: "It's hard to explain a mind-blowing mess like this one, but AFP is suing a Haitian photojournalist for 'antagonistic assertion of [his] rights' after it distributed his news-breaking earthquake photos all over the world without his permission."

The article, at PDN online, is called "Insult to Injury: AFP Suing Photographer It Stole Images From." The photographer has some culpability, too, as you'll see.

Mike

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Original contents copyright 2010 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Judith Wallerius: "The article gets a couple of facts wrong and, most importantly, doesn't mention a crucial detail: the photographer didn't upload the photos to Twitter (which is text only, and just the famous 140 characters) but to Twitpic. And their terms of use say: 'All images uploaded are copyright © their respective owners' (and you give Twitpic 'permission to use or distribute your photos on Twitpic.com or affiliated sites').

"And that fact changes the whole thing. I think a far more accurate article to read about the whole mess is 'Agence France Presse's slap to photographers' by Olivier Laurent at the BJP's 1854 blog.

"It explains very well what happened, who did what and when, and it becomes very clear that AFP hasn't really got a leg to stand on if they go the copyright-route (but might have had, had they claimed fair use).

"I found it via the always excellent aphotoeditor.com, by the way, who wrote about it in April."

Comments

[b]

He did not read terms of service, shame on him...

[Josh]

No big surprise, the copyright laws are made to protect rich and wealthy corporations from some havenots. Its meant to work only one way.

[night86mare]

I think this is just a lesson that one should not just freely post their images on these cool social websites without reading carefully what the T&C are.

I keep only the essential friends I have on Facebook - that's probably because I don't really need the social network. If I ran a photography business I would probably segregate a personal account and a networking one, because it's worth the trouble.

In particular countries (which I shall not mention), it is legal for the local press to just grab pictures off the internet under the clause of "fair dealing" - for the reporting of news, all that is needed is a "sufficient acknowledgement". This is most certainly quite appalling especially since this means that less manpower is needed, they could very well just ditch all their press photographers and happily grab photos off the internet to write a report.

[Sam Scherf]

Would his twitter posted video be more protected if he would have added a "copyright" to the lower right corner of the entire production?

[Quad]

If indeed Twitter's Terms of Service state that anything posted can be redistributed without further consideration then I guess he should have read them. I do not like seeing photographers get ripped off but I also think that you cannot use just pick out the parts of the internet you like and ignore the rest just as you cannot live in a civil society and only take the benefits. You may not like the rest but then you have to work to change those parts you feel are wrong not pretend they don't exist.

The TOS of many services are outrageous, in my opinion, and yet people still use those services because they want what they offer so badly.

[robert e]

Wow. The PDN report leaves a lot of unanswered questions, and I'm no lawyer anyway, but this seems like a case almost tailored to illuminate some vexing rights issues of the day. For the sake of public interest I hope this is not settled out of court.

Meanwhile, the Shepard Fairey/AP suit slogs on. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/arts/design/29arts-JUDGEURGESRE_BRF.html

[Barbu]

„The photographer has some culpability”? C'mon... Cease and desist is as good as it gets, forced by lawyers. And asserting rights for a proved „mistake” might even be futile, no matter how strong a reaction that photographer could display.
What's more, even the article linked in your post has something wrong: the photographer merely *linked* the picture from Twitter; Twitter does not have the capability to host (distribute, display) images; the actual pic was on a sister site, TwitPic; that site clearly states in the terms of service that the copyright remains with the original poster.

[Roger Bradbury]

I cannot reconcile 'Your Rights' and 'Copyright Policy' at all in Twitter's Terms of Service:
http://twitter.com/tos

There is more detail in this report:
http://www.100eyes.org/2010/04/daniel-morel/
Especially interesting is the last paragraph where a Lisandro Suero is said to have pirated Mr. Morel's 13 pictures and AFP took them from his account, not Daniel Morel's.

I don't know about the, "false and defamatory statements" that Mr. Morel is alleged to have made, but only today I was reminded why if there is a problem in business you must still be polite. Very firm, but polite. I was polite and all parties are now much happier and I think will stay that way. Nowt to do with photography, I might add.

[hugh crawford]

Daniel Morel posted his photos on twitpic , not twitter. Twitter doesn't do photos.

twitpic's terms of service are here

http://twitpic.com/terms.do

"All images uploaded are copyright © their respective owners "

[Bryce Lee in Burlington, Ontario Canada]

Mike:
The three "Life In The World"
is continuing evidence "life" as we thought it should be, is not.

And as we aged baby boomers begin our descent into that vast dark pool known as death by any number of causes, the world we leave will not thank us for the mess we have knowingly left behind.

For the future of the world will be but
a whimper in the annals of recorded history.

Of a time when events transgressed the passage of time faster than the world's inhabitants could ever absorb.