More than $120,000,000 at stake in AFP v. Morel case

Be *very* careful when uploading!

When you upload to a site like twitter, you're bound by their license agreement. You have to be *very* careful what you upload, and you have to read the Ts & Cs very carefully indeed before using them so you know what your rights are.

I've just taken a look at twitpic's terms, and this was the first bit that stood out:

"It is not acceptable to copy or save another user's content from Twitpic and upload to other sites for redistribution and dissemination."

Morel seems to be covered there. It's not acceptable for AFP to copy photos and redistribute them. But then there's this:

"By uploading content to Twitpic you give Twitpic permission to use or distribute your content on Twitpic.com or affiliated sites."

If any of the sites are affiliated (and I bet the lawyers could stretch the meaning of that plenty!) with twitpic, it could all fall apart. But it gets much worse:

"To publish another Twitpic user’s content for any commercial purpose or for distribution beyond the acceptable Twitter "retweet" which links back to the original user’s content page on Twitpic, whether online, in print publication, television, or any other format, you are required to obtain permission from Twitpic in advance of said usage and attribute credit to Twitpic as the source where you have obtained the content."

AFP could have asked twitpic for permission to distribute it, presumably paid them, and the photo credit and money would have gone to Twitpic instead of Morel! With terms like this Morel was a fool to use the service at all for anything even vaguely commercial.

why?

Not answered in any of these articles is why in the world Daniel Morel PUBLISHED the photographs on Twitter? When he did, was there any kind of copyright notice - even in his EXIF metadata?

Terry Thomas
Freelance Photographer
Atlanta

Really?

Terry,

Even without metadata (which I'm sure he had applied as a professional photojournalist) the copyright is intact. Writing things like "Why did he upload them?" are just plain idiotic. TO SHOW PEOPLE. We are talking about a large photo agency stealing and republishing them, not some kid using tumblr. It's outrageous and I hope he strikes paydirt as a warning to other agencies.

As to why?

I'm surprised anyone is asking why Morel might have put the images on twitter. I imagine, as a Haitian seeing the horrific devastation wrought on his own country with little prospect of immediate relief, he might have have been thinking first and foremost of getting the images out to a global audience in the hope of encouraging a response without first taking the time to worry about his bottom line. An understandable and visceral reaction to something profoundly shocking that may well have felt very, very personal in a way that most quickly developing disaster situations covered by photojournalists don't - and exacerbated by the complete inadequacy of the locally available response in an especially poor corner of the world.

In his shoes I think "businessman" would come a distant third to "photojournalist" and "Haitian". Lifting the images was just an especially vile example of the routinely employed double standards we have come to expect from those who should - and do - know better.

Twitter

One thing that this case will have shown is the "dangers" of publishing images on Twitter and other social networking websites - yet, a lot of media organisations did pay Morel for his images after he published them on Twitter. Only Agence France Presse and a few other organisations didn't.

AFP should know better

From first hand experience I can state that possibly driven by the agency culture to be first with the images and get them out before other agencies (as well as hitting sales targets); some picture editors in agencies deliberately and willfully ignore photographers' copyright and restrictions and fail in their duty of care to ascertain copyright ownership when taking images from social network sites .. twitter, flickr, tumblr, et al. The attitude has always been, if the photographer complains, pay him off and he/she will go away and if they are not a contributor, sign them up so there will be no further repercussions. (I would not doubt that this was tried).

Well I hope the Judge applies the fullest possible award in order to set a precedent and a shining example that stealing copyright is criminal and punishable by the laws applicable.
Inherent in the attitude of the larger agencies is the arrogant mindset among the staff that they are too big to be sued; that they can back the little guy into a corner.

These are not kids downloading images for a school project. These are corporations whose core business is licensing copyright - i.e. applying copyright laws to monetize images they legally represent - and they above all should be fully 100% aware that what they have done is simply theft and no amount of prevarication can alter that fact.

There is no such thing as lawful theft and it is quite right that the judge should dismiss any spurious arguments to justify theft on the highly questionable grounds that it was legal.

That would be setting the wrong precedent!

Innocent?

How can Getty Images and AFP's conduct be termed "innocent" when their only purpose was to make money?

ethic

If you find money on the floor, does that mean you can act as if it was yours?

Those "image corporations" are feeding on the work of others, that is their business model and it is about time this model goes thru the legal testing, their rights stop where the others' start.

If you are in business to make money, you cannot say that the risk related to that business does not belong to you.