BBC caught in Twitter copyright row [newly updated]
Bloggers and photographers are calling on the BBC to rethink its use of Twitter images during its news broadcasts after failing to credit copyright owners
Author: Katie Poole Olivier Laurent
Update: BBC's justifications "unacceptable," says a National Union of Journalists representative.
Upset with BBC's treatment with photo credits from Twitter users during the London riots and Oslo attacks, Andy Mabbett, a blogger and amateur photographer, took to the web to express his disappointment - and to publicise BBC's surprising response.
On 06 August, Mabbett sent a complaint to the BBC for its news coverage of the Tottenham riots in north London. The blogger objected to the way the images had been credited - the images appeared on the air with a "from Twitter" mention.
"You may have found them via [Twitter] but they would have been hosted elsewhere and taken by other photographers, whom you did not name and whose copyright you may have breached," Mabbett told the BBC in his complaint.
“I want them to attribute photographers and cite their sources,” Mabbett tells BJP, commenting on his decision to contact the BBC despite not seeing any of his photos used “in this way”. [updated on Tuesday 16 August at 10.30am]
One week later, Mabbett published BBC's answer. "Twitter is a social network platform which is available to most people who have a computer and therefore any content on it is not subject to the same copyright laws as it is already in the public domain."
BBC's response mirrors that of the Daily Mail's online picture editor, Elliot Wagland, who once claimed that all pictures posted on Twitter and TwitPic were in the public domain.
The post, which has attracted widespread attention in teh photography community, has forced the BBC to backtrack, with Chris Hamilton, social media editor at the BBC, commenting that the BBC was now "checking out the complaint response quoted above but, on the face of it, it's wrong and isn't the position of BBC News."
Hamilton added: "We want to do right by potential contributors and our audience - it's not in our interests to annoy them - and this is a good opportunity to remind ourselves of that."
Update: The BBC has now issued an official statement, confirming that the initial response "doesn't represent BBC policy." The institution adds: "In terms of permission and attribution, we make every effort to contact people who've taken photos we want to use in our coverage and ask for their permission before doing so. However, in exceptional situations, where there is a strong public interest and often time constraints, such as a major news story like the recent Norway attacks or rioting in England, we may use a photo before we've cleared it."
The BBC says that such decisions are not made lightly - "a senior editor has to judge that there is indeed a strong public interest in making a photo available to a wide audience."
It continues: "But sometimes, in the exceptional circumstances just outlined, it's just not possible to make contact with the person who took the picture, or they don't want to be contacted, or we might consider it too dangerous to try and make contact - a significant issue in our coverage of the recent Arab uprisings."
The BBC also argues that in some cases copyright owners will ask not to be named. "When we can't credit the copyright holder, our practice has been to label the photo to indicate where it was obtained, such as 'From Twitter', as part of our normal procedure for sourcing content used in our output. We do want to acknowledge the value our audience adds to our output, and hope this sheds light on our editorial decision process made during exceptional circumstances."
It remains unclear, however, whether copyright owners of English riot images asked the BBC to remove their names for security reasons. [Updated on Monday 15 August at 5.50pm]
In the US, the use of images posted on Twitter is at the centre of a high-profile case between freelance photographer Daniel Morel and Agence France Presse and Getty Images.
The case, which is expected to be tried later this year, was launched after Agence France Presse distributed images of the 2010 Haiti earthquake Morel posted on Twitter. According to Agence France Presse, Morel had implicitly granted a non-exclusive license to third-parties to use the images. However, a judge dismissed Agence France Presse's claim, allowing the photographer to move forward with his copyright infringement case against the news agency and Getty Images.
Mabbett's complaint also comes as Twitter has officially launched its official photo-sharing service, hosted by Photobucket. Speaking to BJP, a Twitter spokeswoman has confirmed that while Twitter requires a non-exclusive license to host and show its users' images, photographers remain the rightful owners of their images.
Meanwhile, TwitPic recently signed a deal with the WENN photo agency to sell its users' images without remuneration for copyright owners.
Comments
Seems like an exercise in futility to try to protect yourself as a photographer these days. The abuse of our craft just seems to be intensifying and coming from all angles.
Anyone remember the Cooks Source magazine controversy last year, where the magazine's editors took a blogger's content then tried to say that anything on the web is in the public domain? Seems the BBC has a simliar attitude.
The BBC quite rightly respects your copyright, except when it is inconvenient to them.
In other words, please look at this hand while the other picks your pocket.
I want that logo on a t-shirt.
(What, you were expecting real content?!).
I can't help but wonder if there's a market for a website/service that rather than essentially stealing photographers' work (Twitpic), makes it EASY for them to sell it to the appropriate source. Maybe something along the lines of "YourPictureDesk", a photo hosting/library site supported by an iPhone/Android app which you pre-fill your picture credit, address and PayPal (if appropriate) details into, which automatically uses the Geotag image. T&Cs allow the service to publish and share those images, but legitimate picture editors can sign up free to use it, have a "stream" of images which they can choose to filter by keywords or geographic location (for example, if I were using it during the 'riots' I'd have a catchment area around the hotspots and be watching a stream of user-supplied images). For speed, the images are placed in the basket and made available ASAP, with an account settlement agreement. Unused images are removed from the basket later.
App should be free. Charges for image use I think should realistically be around 40% commission, due to the mechanism provided. And of course, it would have to be global; a community could even work out ways around communication restrictions and provide information.
Like I said, no content to be found here. Where can I obtain said t-shirt? :)
I have to say it is ridiculous to consider twitter content public domain. That said did see a tweet from the BBC asking another journalist for permission to use a photo, I think they even described it as a cheeky request.
Actually, found a reference to it http://twitter.com/#!/Joe380/status/101046681516261376
Twitpic, Twitter, Lockerz, YFrog, Mobypic – good or bad?
Twitter and the various 3rd party image hosts all have different T&C's. By uploading any image to them we are often granting them a worldwide perpetual Royalty Free licence to do what they like with our content. But not all are bad.... I recently blogged about this here:
http://bit.ly/pUZ4FW
Ain't BBC in the public domain?!
im wondering how the BBC would feel If their content was just to be rebroadcast, and a note saying .......'from tv' ....it is in the public domain after all!
"Twitter is a social network platform which is available to most people who have a computer and therefore any content on it is not subject to the same copyright laws as it is already in the public domain"
In the same way
TV is available to most people and therefore any content on it is not subject....
So rebroadcasting TV content is fine with the BBC.
"Twitter is a social network platform which is available to most people who have a computer and therefore any content on it is not subject to the same copyright laws as it is already in the public domain"
In the same way
TV is available to most people and therefore any content on it is not subject....
So rebroadcasting TV content is fine with the BBC.
Hamilton added: "We want to do right by potential contributors and our audience - it's not in our interests to annoy them - and this is a good opportunity to remind ourselves of that."
Does this mean that the BBC has dispensed with Nick Reynolds' services ;-)
I've read the Mail Online case, the Telegraph case and now this - and I'm wondering how the news organisations would respond if we simply started lifting their words and packaging them up with our images agency-style?
I imagine their lawyers would be straight on the phone with copyright infringement actions.
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