09 Jun 2010
No Visa support for Morel in Haiti case
Haiti-based photographer Daniel Morel, who is at the heart of a legal challenge by Agence France Press over his images' copyright, won't receive support from Jean-Francois Leroy, director of the world's largest photojournalism festival
Olivier Laurent
Last month, I wrote that Agence France Presse had filed a complaint in a United States District Court in New York against Haiti-based photographer Daniel Morel (read my previous blog post "Agence France Presse's slap to photographers")
Agence France Presse claims Morel engaged in an “antagonistic assertion of rights” after the photographer objected to the use by AFP of images he posted online of the Haitian earthquake of 12 January. At the heart of this case, which has prompted Morel to file a 66-page brief and 10 counterclaims, is the news agencies’ use of social networking websites such as Twitter.
Morel, an established and award-winning photographer who used to work for Associated Press and since 2004 works as a freelance represented by Corbis, was in Port-au-Prince when the earthquake struck on 12 January at 4.54pm. Morel writes in his counter-claim, “the most catastrophic earthquake in the Caribbean region in 200 years struck Haiti”. The devastation would leave 230,000 people dead and 1.5m homeless.
Morel and an American journalist and friend, Eric Parker, “hit the street to obtain daylight shots” of the devastation. That evening, Morel created a Twitter account with the username “PhotoMorel”, first foray in the world of 140-character long Tweets. By 5.20pm, Morel posted 13 images he’d taken that day.
The images attracted immediate attention from news sources but also from one Twitter user, Lisandro Suero, who downloaded Morel’s images and uploaded them again on his own account, claiming to be the author. The images were later taken on by Agence France Presse.
According to Morel’s lawyers, “AFP wilfully or with reckless disregard of Mr Morel’s rights in its rush to receive credit for the news-breaking photographs, failed to use due diligence to ascertain the identity of Mr Suero, or to verify his authorship of the photographs. No standard or traditional good journalistic practices were followed. Either AFP has no reliable process in place to verify the authenticity of the image the source, or AFP failed to use such process or procedure.”
Agence France Presse claims it was to free to use the images, as, by uploading the images on Twitter, Morel granted any third-party a non-exclusive license to use them (however, despite AFP's claims, Morel did not upload his images on Twitter, but instead chose TwitPic, a third-party website that respects copyright and does NOT grant a license to use them - see my first post, from last month, about this).
The case, if it goes to court, could redefine or clarify how images posted online can be used.
However, the photographer won’t receive support from Jean-François Leroy, co-founder of the world’s largest photojournalism festival. “Photographers have to accept their responsibilities. You can’t put your images on Twitter and not expect them to be taken up by others,” he tells me. “In the span of a few hours, Morel’s images were on 300 sites. You don’t put images you think are worth $10,000 on Twitter. If I’m the witness of such a tragic event as this earthquake, I call an agency or Getty or Corbis. The photographer that calls me to complain about this, I’m sorry to say, I can’t defend. It’s as if all Iranians who put images on Twitter during last year’s protests asked for royalties. It’s not easy, in Morel’s case, to say that Agence France Presse messed up.”
Comments
Perhaps we should think again?
Did not more in depth analysis of this case establish that actually the images were not published on 'Twitter' (how do you do that by the way?) but TWITPIC a completely different entity with different rules, rules which incidentally recognise copyright of the individual.
Why is no one lambasting the guy who stole these photos in the first place and passed them off as his own - despicable!
Jeremy Nichols investigation of this is perhaps the best report I have read of this case - perhaps others should read it too. http://www.jeremynicholl.com/blog/2010/05/31/uk-newspapers-steal-photos-from-twitter-and-flickr/
Pete, you're right it was indeed on TwitPic that Morel posted the photos, as I highlighted it in my first post about the case in late April.
Agence France Presse, citing the legal case, isn't commenting. I've tried to speak to Vincent Amalvy, the AFP photo editor who "took" the images, to no avail...
Olivier Laurent
News Editor
British Journal of Photography
Something people seem to be missing: "Morel, an established and award-winning photographer who used to work for Associated Press and since 2004 works as a freelance represented by Corbis ..."
Why didn't he just contact Corbis? or AP? He was an experienced news photographer not some newb.
I do not think that this kind of language is appropriate anywhere, least of all on BJP.com
That said, since the issue is basically about copyright infringement, I have to believe that Morel has the law on his side, and that the onus is on AFP to resolve the matter.
Regardless of their rationale for how the images came into their possession, AFP have infringed on Morel's rights as the owner of the images, and have caused him economic damage. They have to resolve the matter, fair and square.
As I am sure JFL knows, there are billions of images floating around on the internet. No one has the right to take any of those pictures and use them without doing the necessary due diligence to determine the underlying ownership of said images. Especially commercial companies that are in the business of making money from the licensing of imagery. If AFP come out of this looking like careless image thieves, they are going to inflict significant damage to their brand and credibility, not just with photographers, but more importantly to their client base.
I would imagine that AFP's current position is all about determining the economic calculus of this situation, meaning that lawyers and the executives are involved. If they were smart, they would settle this matter quickly and move on. Otherwise, with each day that they drag this one out, they are going to further sully a valuable reputation that took many years to construct.
Respect rather than exploitation
It's a shame... Just think of the shock Morel had just experienced as his home and home city crumbled around him. Add to that the fact that there was only sporadic Internet service in some places and no electric power, and you realize that most of his options were probably extremely limited. Morel was in Hell... And this is not a case of fair use, AFP profited from his work and sacrifice. Their behavior is shameful. I suppose it should be OK to lift AFP content for publication if a third party posts it on a site with lax copyright rules.
The other day my son rode his scooter home in a hurry because he had been stung by a bee. In his haste, he left the scooter on the sidewalk for a few minutes. A bigger kid, a neighbor picked it up and took it home. When my son came out it was gone. When he found it at the neighbors home the kid told him it was abandoned in the street and refused to return it. The neighbor knew it was my sons scooter but he took it because he could. AFP who like most large news organizations was combing social media because it was the first form of communication out of Haiti had to have known who the author was but like my sons larger neighbor chose to claim them because they could.
It's all about doing the right thing, it's about honor and respect.
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