Unauthorized Picture Use by NY Times, NBC, Time Warner

Copyright

Copyright

All works are copyright when created. If you want to be able to claim monetary damages for unauthorized use, you have to register your work with the copyright office.

These days it is fairly easy, since you can bundle a bunch of images together on a CD or DVD and submit them as a "collection" and only pay one fee.

You should contact the Times and other organizations, even if you don't want any money, if only to help maintain that idea that media organizations can't just use other people's material.

Think of it as doing your bit for fellow photographers everywhere.

Something is going to have to change. At the same time that people are "borrowing" works left and right the major media producers are making any use of their material more restrictive.

There is a case going on about a person who wrote a dictionary of Harry Potter trivia and is being sued by Rowling because they are her characters. The copyright law specifically allows derivative works such as commentary, etc. to be created. This is an attempt to copyright an idea which is specifically exempted.

The UK is looking to push copyright of musical works to 95 years currently.
 
I've been trying to get a lawyer to represent me in a suit against AT&T for making commercials that are a blatant rip-off of my blog photos featuring a toy monkey. I've been doing the series for going on three years now and do post a periodic copyright notice. They even bought an identical toy monkey!
http://thepriceofsilver.blogspot.com/ has lots of my monkey shots. I wish you luck and I'm sorry for your loss.
 
Frankly, I would be more concerned that AP is taking credit for the picture. They WILL distribute it world wide to all of their subscribers. At the very least I would contact AP and ask them how they came to consider that photograph their image.
I too offer my condolences to you, Joe. I am so completely sick and tired of all the violence in the U.S. and everywhere else, for that matter.

Jonnyfez said:
Forget a lawsuit. Find out who used the photo and send them an invoice for a reproduction fee. Believe it or not this sometimes works. If you get anything out them give the money to your friend's family or their favorite charity.

Jon
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Your Rights

Your Rights

I'm sorry to hear of your loss and this tragic situation, adding theft on top of a loss makes it even more grievous. Copyright laws protect the artist and provide compensation for illegal use. The art is copyrighted upon creation and the difference in a law suit would be collection of damages for copyrighted materials and collection of damages and attorney fees if the copyrighted object is registered. It is unfortunate but as good as the internet is for obtaining data and displaying our creations is it also opens the door for unscrupulous individuals to use our creations, most times, without recourse. At the very least you should receive photo credit but at this time it would probably be buried in a "corrections" box somewhere on a back page of the paper. At most you should receive monetary compensation by the scale they pay stringers. I would definately write a non threatening letter to them explaining the situation and your feelings about what has taken place, at the very least it will help you through the grieving process.
 
Frankly, I would be more concerned that AP is taking credit for the picture.
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This does not necessarily mean the AP is taking credit. The Associated Press essentially is made up of all the member newspapers, networks, etc. When those members produce work, it is distributed to other members for their use.

If, say, the Boston Globe runs a photo with an AP credit line, they are letting readers know that no staff photographer from the Globe took the photo.
While the AP does have its own staff of writers and photograhers, they produce only a portion of each day's AP content.
 
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I would just be glad such a beautiful photo can provide people with a sense of what was lost. I am going to guess this falls under "fair use" when news reporting. You would also need to prove "...the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." As horrific as the event was it also makes it a newsworthy event and having a photo to go with the name is part of news reporting.
 
Eh? Why the "commercial vs editorial" use argument here? It's not working this way with copyrights, they'd still need a permission from copyright holder even if they were a charity.

It is no coincidence that "copyright" is derived from "right" and "copy", no?
 
I wonder if the fact that the Times and other news outlets are MAKING MONEY from your photograph has been missed by other posters here! They're not in the business of publishing as a charity. They deliberately used the photograph of your friend to increase (I'd argue greatly increase) the attractiveness of the story to potential readers and therefore sell more papers, etc. They've made a lot of money here. Imagine this story without a photograph of the victim, let alone an attractive, well done photograph. They've used something you own to make money for themselves. You, or the charity of your choice, deserve something in return.
 
In reality, once it's posted online, it's gone.

There are exceptions, such as if one's definitely identifiable work was taken and used in some large, highly visible ad campaign, for example, but as someone who has witnessed hundreds, if not thousands of such incidents in my publishing career, there is very little that can be done.

When Elvis died, several MAJOR publishers printed "one shot" magazines crammed with tons of photos that were gathered from EVERYWHERE. They reprinted copyrighted material, album covers, even reshot photos from other magazines. Lots of people threatened "lawsuits", nobody collected a dime. One well-known lawsuit was thrown out.

Basically, in reality, in news publications almost anything is fair game. Even non-news use is very hard to pursue legally.

I know this inspires a lot of self-righteous indignation and consternation amongst the crowd who takes their images very personally, but it's a lost battle from the start, especially ONCE A PHOTO IS ON THE WEB. Then you can kiss it goodbye.

You want to get paid for images? Get paid BEFORE they are posted or published.

Look at the Edison Chen craziness going on in China right now. The dumb schnook took his self-photographed porn-filled laptop in for service, and every starlet in HK and Japan is now all over the web with his dingus in their yaps.

Personally, I'm not all that attached to my pictures. I see them all the time, credited to other people, stolen, used to illustrate books and websites, who cares. I get a kick out of thinking people liked what I photographed. The financial end was taken care of when I SOLD the photos the first time. I only expect royalties on an iron-clad contract.
 
Quantify the "damages" suffered by the photographer.

Quantify the "profit" made by illustrating a news story with a headshot.

You be the "lawyer". What imaginary figure do you have in mind? Describe the actual "profit" made by the Times, and then prove how you arrived at that figure.

Let's say a good Manhattan copyright attorney bills about $500+ per hour (conservatively). Let's say you can talk him into taking your case. You pay a $10,000 retainer up front, then the billable hours start.

How many tens of thousands of dollars do you want to lose before you extract a $250 token payment from the newspaper?

Get real, bubby.

visiondr said:
I wonder if the fact that the Times and other news outlets are MAKING MONEY from your photograph has been missed by other posters here! They're not in the business of publishing as a charity. They deliberately used the photograph of your friend to increase (I'd argue greatly increase) the attractiveness of the story to potential readers and therefore sell more papers, etc. They've made a lot of money here. Imagine this story without a photograph of the victim, let alone an attractive, well done photograph. They've used something you own to make money for themselves. You, or the charity of your choice, deserve something in return.
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And not only that, NOW we're altruistically talking "contributions to charities".

Not only do we now think we're getting a million dollar payday, but that we're going to save the world with the proceeds.
 
This is a very unfortunate event happening at a very unfortunate time for you. My advice is simple and twofold:

* First, kindly approach AP, NYT, CNN, and the other places where you have seen the image. There will be more, but start with the big player. Tell them you are the copyright holder, and that the image was swiped. If they are reasonable, they should come up with a proposition to repair the situation. A simple erratum is not enough.

* Then, before you even waste money on sharks^H^H^H^H^H^H lawyers, call some media outlets, preferrably companies who are competing with the media who swiped your photo, and tell your story.

This stuff is newsowrthy, and it could hurt quite a lot. Recently, there has been a similar affair involving FOX and a pug, but the case was uncertain. cf:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/bryantpark/2007/12/you_decide_the_tug_over_the_pu.html

You have a very clearcut situation in comparison.
Your story matters for everyone who share their pictures on the internet, and must risk copyright theft by the corporate media.
Your story matters because the swipers are callous to you and the memory of your friends.
Your story matters because everyone everywhere is becoming crazy about copyright, and loads of influence everywhere in the world are being poured upon government to the profit of corporations.

NPR, given that they have covered the pug story, could have a strong interest in your story. Michael Geist (http://www.michaelgeist.ca), a prominent copyright lawyer, could be interested in blogging about your story.

These kinds of situations are going to be more and more common over time, and this trend will have a serious impact on copyright litigation.

So FIRST: talk to the media who swiped you
SECOND: talk to the other media

You'd be surprised how the fear of a public media lynching mob is a deterrent...
 
Anyone who has suggested that once a photo is puiblished in the digital domain it is "gone" or fair game, is quite wrong.

If you created the image you must specifically revoke any copyright (grant rights to another party) for you to lose it - even posting it without a copyright or all rights reserved message does not give you any less ownership over the image. The notice only expedites claims in cases of lawsuits.

As a designer I deal with photo licesning all the time - even overtly derived works (ie. illustrations derived from an identifiable photograph) are not legal without procuring rights for such work. If you didn't specifically give someone else full ownership of an image, you have some say in how it can be used.

It is also worth noting that most copyright cases are civil cases, not criminal cases ( there have been very few cases where felony charges were filed in copyright infringement) but in most cases it is civil law.

This means that "innocent until proven guilty" and "beyond a reasonable doubt" do not stand - the judge and jury have much more freedom to interpret the evidence- more often than not the little guy wins.
 
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How many tens of thousands of dollars do you want to lose before you extract a $250 token payment from the newspaper?
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No doubt. It's not like we are talking about an image that has a lot of commercial potential. It's a nice shot. But it's not something people are going to line up to buy.


Let's look at another reality here. It is more than likely that the photo was supplied to the NYTimes by a member of the family. That's typically what happens in these situations.
Would Joe really want to drag the family member into this? How is that going to make him look in the eyes of his friend's family? Not good, I'm thinking.

There are times to take a stand. I'm not sure this is one of them.
 
Since you deal with it "all the time", list two specific incidents which are analogous to the incident described in this thread, and reveal the settlements, either monetary or otherwise.

Can you give the specifics of just two incidents which were resolved in favor of the person who posted his images on the internet?



dpetrzelka said:
Anyone who has suggested that once a photo is puiblished in the digital domain it is "gone" or fair game, is quite wrong.

If you created the image you must specifically revoke any copyright (grant rights to another party) for you to lose it - even posting it without a copyright or all rights reserved message does not give you any less ownership over the image. The notice only expedites claims in cases of lawsuits.

As a designer I deal with photo licesning all the time - even overtly derived works (ie. illustrations derived from an identifiable photograph) are not legal without procuring rights for such work. If you didn't specifically give someone else full ownership of an image, you have some say in how it can be used.

And I might add that it does not take a very well qualified "lawyer" to get a corporation to respond - the little guy usually wins these cases.
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tbarker13 said:
No doubt. It's not like we are talking about an image that has a lot of commercial potential. It's a nice shot. But it's not something people are going to line up to buy.
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Not even AP or NYT. Why buy, when you can steal?
 
Then, before you even waste money on sharks^H^H^H^H^H^H lawyers, call some media outlets, preferrably companies who are competing with the media who swiped your photo, and tell your story.
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Please don't do anything like this. Just think about it. Because I'll tell what that story would say:

New York man complains that he didn't get proper credit for his photographic portrait of a friend who was killed last week in a gruesome attack.
 
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