French organisation launches controversial ad campaign for photographers' rights
"Each day, a photographer's work is used without his consent," reads this campaign poster by French organisation Union des Photographes Professionnels - Auteurs.
A French organisation representing professional photographers has launched a new campaign against the abusive use of photographs, often without proper remuneration, by editors and marketers
Author: Olivier Laurent
"Each day, a photographer's work is used without his consent," reads this new campaign poster by French organisation Union des Photographes Professionnels - Auteurs.
The campaign, launched this week, was created after the organisation found that photographers' rights continued to be abused. "It's obvious that professional photographers are not being listened to," says a spokeswoman. "So, for the first time, we're speaking to the photographic community with an image. We hope to raise awareness among the public, as well as the media and the government, about photographers' problems. Each day, photographers are faced with decreasing rates. They are forced to compete against image libraries that are offering vile prices. These practices are infringing on photographers' moral rights."
The organisation adds: "Each day, photographers risk their lives to allow us to stay informed. And each day, photographers continue to be dealt with as if they weren't producing anything. Their work has no value. Each day, their images are used by editors and marketers as if they had found them on the ground. With this image, we want to show the violent and disrespectful economic reality that photographers have to deal with."
For more information about the campaign and the Union des Photographes Professionnels - Auteurs, visit www.upp-auteurs.fr.
Comments
I was out of the room on occasion today, my computer offline, but grinding madly away for no apparent reason I could think of.
Well, before going online I took the trouble to just look for my recent work in my pictures, et voila, there were hundreds of images there that were nothing to do with me. I had not put them there, but they were there, queued for sharing, on a drive that is not on a network and where sharing does not go on at all. I tried deleting them but was unable to so do. Repeatedly.
In the end I gave up, ran an AV scan and ran disk clean-up to discover, wait for it 6.72GB of files marked as system queued files. When I deleted the lot, and then went back to where those files I saw had been queued for sharing they were no longer there. Only the desktop screensaver ones I put there were there as they should be, but something had come in and turned on file and printer sharing- that I had permanently disabled, so forget ad campaigns and check your stuff is not going walkabout in this way instead.!!
I was out of the room on occasion today, my computer offline, but grinding madly away for no apparent reason I could think of.
Well, before going online I took the trouble to just look for my recent work in my pictures, et voila, there were hundreds of images there that were nothing to do with me. I had not put them there, but they were there, queued for sharing, on a drive that is not on a network and where sharing does not go on at all. I tried deleting them but was unable to so do. Repeatedly.
In the end I gave up, ran an AV scan and ran disk clean-up to discover, wait for it 6.72GB of files marked as system queued files. When I deleted the lot, and then went back to where those files I saw had been queued for sharing they were no longer there. Only the desktop screensaver ones I put there were there as they should be, but something had come in and turned on file and printer sharing- that I had permanently disabled, so forget ad campaigns and check your stuff is not going walkabout in this way instead.!!
The Lysol ad that needed to be muted every 15 seconds will get me to stop reading articles on this site. I know you have to generate revenue somehow but that is just obnoxious. Other than that a great read, like most of the other articles on here!
Hello, I left a comment asking why you said this campaign was controversial, but you deleted it after publishing for a short time, was it a bug or something I said? My interest is genuine, because in France no one has found it controversial (so far) and I wondered...
I'm all for raising awareness of all sorts of abuse, but stealing is NOT rape!
I fight for victims of REAL rape every day in my personal and professional life. And while what is happening to your property in this new technological age is not right, at best it's theft and not rape!
People are reluctant to give rape victims any credibility, or tell them to "just get over it". It pains me to see such connections being made.
Maybe the photographers who should "just get over it!" (stings, don’t it?!?!)
Jill, what are you talking about?
You seem to be the only person to have used the word rape on this page.
Should coordinate with artists-bill-of-rights.org
The organizers of this French organization should pool their resources and talent with those from http://artists-bill-of-rights.org . They are all doing good work, so why fragment and dilute the effort?
Jill, I can understand the reason you are upset however if you talk to any photographer who has had their work ripped off you will find this poster is actually a highly accurate representation of the phrase many will use in describing how they feel. I suspect unfortunately that this will be lost on the public.
Rape is an evil crime but that does not in any way justify ripping off photographers. Neither for different reasons should be condoned and I am amazed that you should feel it right to suggest that photographers should "just get over it!". Just because 'people' as you say tell rape victims to do that nowhere in this has anybody suggested that so you do yourself or your cause no favours for attacking a group of people who are also being wronged.
Copyright abuse (and that is the correct term) may not be as bad as rape but it is still wrong. In the eyes of many of us it is theft but that is not how the law sees it and so somebody has chosen to create this campaign just as others create campaigns raising awareness of rape.
When a photographer is ripped off it wastes their time and further money whilst they chase the lost income. Losing out this way is actually an awful feeling not just because of how it affects one's business but also because one feels cheated.
I applaud you for your work but aside from how
the photographer feels governments and the public should also take an interest in ensuring photographers rights are upheld. The £10000 a company got away with owing me because they went bust before I could get them into court would have resulted in a big fat cheque to the tax office as I cannot afford expensive accountants as many of these companies can.
That money would then go to help fund things like the police and hopefully the groups you are involved with. Yes with all the government departments with their hands out the amount that would reach you may be diluted but as the saying goes look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves. You would be amazed how much copyright abuse goes on. It is a major drain on this industry so multiply that £2500 worth of tax a few times and I am sure you can begin to see that those who get funding from the public purse whether the police or charities are also potentially losing out.
Be offended by the poster if you wish but don't forget that the people who do abuse photographers copyright are indirectly also taking funding from yourselves.
Good luck with your work.
If people stopped playing with online communities and online servers to store their images, that would certainly reduce the number of available general pictures and would give more importance to real photographers.
The IT epoque is fabulous, but IT tools have not been mastered at all yet, not only technical-wise, but also with respect to the consequences of privacy, property rights and sensitive data.
There are no laws that can stop this, just common sense and sensible people (rare).
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