Copyright infringement – it’s bad manners (and illegal)

© All rights reserved = don’t use this without the owner’s permission. That’s not such a difficult concept to grasp, is it?

The other day I was explaining to a friend how to set up a Google alert to see, among other things, if your photographs are being used by others without your permission. I explained that it isn’t foolproof and it’s wise to occasionally do a Google search (and Yahoo search, etc) to see what it turns up. I’d not checked myself for a while so ran a check.

Now, before I go on, let me say something about me and photography. Almost all of my photographs are on flickr. I’m not a fantastic photographer. I’m keen and enthusiastic. I enjoy it. I am rather proud of some of my photographs. Most of them are for memories, or fun, or other non-artistic reasons. But they are mine. I keep an ‘all rights reserved’ copyright on all of them, because they are mine. Occasionally I get a flickr mail from someone asking me if they can use one of my photographs for an invitation, or an exhibition about bicycle parking or some such. These people usually tell me they can’t afford to pay for the use. That’s fine. I’m just pleased they respected the copyright and were polite enough to ask. I tell them they can use the photograph so long as I am credited as the photographer.

I was also approached by a UK university who wanted to use some of my photographs (of Beamish) in an educational video about the building of nineteenth century houses. They offered to pay and, as they clearly had a budget for this, I took the money. They got the photos for less than it would have cost them to travel from the West Country to the North of England, and I got a little bit of money and the thrill of being paid for my photography.

So, I ran a check on my flickr name and found that some guy who runs a French website about Pink Floyd was using this photograph of Camberwell College of Arts:

It’s mine and it is clearly marked ‘© All rights reserved’ on its flickr page. Apparently this means nothing to the guy who stole it. I know this because when I mailed him and said

‘You have used one of my photographs (of Camberwell College) without my permission. Please remove it from your site.’

He replied telling me

I’m sorry for the inconvenience. I can’t write a mail for all the photos that are on my website. I think it’s fair use to put a low resolution version with a link to the author’s website. Lots of webmasters don’t even credit authors… Anyway, I’ve removed your photography. That’s a pity ’cause it’s a beauty !

What nonsense. If he can search for the photos, he can drop a flickrmail asking if he can use it. Just because others also break the law doesn’t make it right. So I replied with

‘Fair use’ is to respect the legality of ‘all rights reserved’. If a photograph has a creative commons license then you can use it in accordance with the license.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED means just that. Just because other people also break the law does not make it right.

Thank you for removing it, and thank you for the comment.

It might interest you to know that I have never yet refused a REQUEST from any one who wanted to use one of my photographs. Just ASK in future.

The cheeky so-and-so came back with

‘I think you should write an email to the english Wikipedia, they have tons of copyrighted matérial on their pages… qualified as “fair use”
They also have lots of my content stealed directly from my own website. But that’s what Wikipedia is : a giant copy-paste of the World Wide Web !

Well… you’re absolutely right, and I was wrong. Please excuse me, again.

I’d like to ask you something : can I use your Camberwell College photography on my website?

Apart from my not having seen any photographs on wikipedia that weren’t either ‘creative commons’ licensed or had some other indication that permission had been given, he seems to be complaining that someone has stolen from him the images he has stolen from others. No, I will NOT be giving him permission to use my photographs. Cheeky sod.

Today, I found this, even more annoying, instance of photography theft. Some woman, who has a design company making notecards and calendars (so she should certainly understand about copyright – not that it’s a difficult concept to grasp) has a blog about ‘places she’s never been’. There is a link from her blog to her website and online shop – so she’s making money from this. Her entry for the end of February includes three photographs including this one of mine

They are not linked back (ie, clicking on the photograph does nothing, doesn’t take you to the original on flickr) and the only way I knew it was there is because she put, at the end of her entry

‘The above photos (top left, clockwise) are via flickr by XianRex, saltybullfrog, & Jacqi B.’

Well, Ms Hill, that is NOT good enough. I’ve mailed her and left a comment on her blog. I’ll see if she has the courtesy to get back to me.

My flickrstream is now set so that my photos can only be printed, downloaded or shared by my ‘friends and family’. I can’t remember how recently I did that so don’t know if these people have got round that somehow.

Tags: bad manners, copyright infringement, flickr, photography, rudeness