We’ll find out, pending Daniel Morel’s court case against Agency France Presse (AFP) for using his photo of the Haiti earthquake disaster that he uploaded to TwitPic in January. AFP sold it to Getty, the New York Times, TIME and the front pages of other papers across the world, without permission or payment.
When the photographer sent AFP cease and desist letters for copyright infringement, they sued him, postulating that TwitPic and Twitter are a free for all, and since everyone else is doing it, as a third party, they can use and republish whatever they want. In their view, uploading is licensing.
Even more ridiculous: For a long time, AFP credited Daniel Morel’s photos to AFP/Getty/Lisandro Suero. Who’s Lisandro Suero? Some guy who re-TwitPic’d the photo. AFP knew their error, but had to be forced to amend it.
The good news: a federal judge in New York decided not to throw out Daniel Morel’s copyright claim, despite AFP’s wishes. This is just a pre-trial victory, so we’ll see how the story develops.
But by all means, don’t let it stop you. TwitPic on. Hashtag away. That is, if your livelihood doesn’t depend on licensing fees.
Firstly, happy new year from Australia.
Secondly: this is fucked. So often I see things being plagiarised by people without credit to the creator and people think just because it’s online it’s acceptable. It’s not. IP laws need to protect the creative license people have and protect their work by instigating harsher laws on people who don’t credit.
If universities can expell you for not citing sources then a similar firm-handed approach needs to be taken in this instance. Personally I hope Morel sues their asses for a whopping amount. I mean come on: journalists and the press should be carrying the flag for this sort of thing.
You would think that if he just showed his photo to Getty, the Times, Time, etc, all of them would immediately demand their money back and then give it straight to Morel. And then fire AFP from all future work.