Mar 12, 2007
Future of Web Copyright?
Now, I don’t mean to whinge, really I don’t, but I recently got a broadcast list mail from those nice people at FoWA, thanking me (and everyone else) for attending the recent conference in London.
At the bottom of the mail was a little montage of pictures of the event, which I’ve screengrabbed and reproduced below:
I couldn’t help but notice that the montage contained an image which I took – the one in the bottom right hand corner, which can also be seen on my Flickr stream, here:
When I uploaded the image to Flickr, I tagged it (as requested) with the event-specific tags FOWA, FOWALondon07 etc, all of which mean that the image can be found alongside others taken at the event. So far, so standard.
But the thing that I find a bit irritating is that while I don’t mind the images being found – public sharing being the heart of a lot of flickr activity, after all – I didn’t realise that when the folks at FoWA said:
“We were really pleased to see so many people upload photos and blog about the event. If you’re still planning to post something, please remember to tag it fowalondon07 so that we can call share the happy memories!”
…what they actually meant was “please tag things so we can find them, and use them in our promotional materials without permission.”
I know it sounds petty, but the images I uploaded to Flickr are All Rights Reserved, and I’m surprised to see the Carson folks flaunting user-created content permissions so widely. The image I took of the crowd from above has been used without permission – and worse, without credit, or link to the original picture on Flickr, or anything similar, which would have at least been polite, if still in breach of expressed copyright.
It’s staggering that Carson/FoWA appear not to have grasped the fundamentals of using (and crediting) user-created media, especially since that was such a theme in the most recent event. If they didn’t credit or ask permission to use my image, what about all the others they’ve used, on their site and in the various mailouts?
Come on, guys: Do the right thing, please. Practise what your conferences preach!
I quite agree, however, I wouldn’t be surprised if you got an email from them saying your screen grab “violates the terms of copyright” and “you will hear from our lawyers” etc.
You think? Hmm. Interesting. Well, I’ve credited them, said it’s from their mailout, clearly stated it’s a screengrab.
I’ll fuzz out the other images, too, to be on the safe side.
Thanks!
I think you’re on safe ground, Meg. To my mind, your use of an excerpt from their mailshot constitutes “criticism, review and news reporting” in line with the generally accepted doctrine of fair dealing and also more specifically in line with the UK’s Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This reminds me a little of after I attended the Carson Workshops Flickr workshop in 2005. We’d all been given evaluation forms to fill out at the end of the day. Fair enough. Except they then used a quote from my form, credited to me, as promotion on their website (along with quotes from other attendees).
They took it down when I complained, but it seemed very cheeky to use something written down at the event, with no indication it would be seen by anyone else, as marketing copy.
To be honest I think I’d also be a bit annoyed if I appeared in one of the photos on the page I linked to, even though I think CW took the photos themselves. I’m used to appearing in friend’s Flickr feeds etc, but there’s something about appearing unwittingly in promotional material that feels dirty.
It’s a bit stupid that they sent it directly to you as well.
Clearly, they weren’t thinking properly. I’d be annoyed as well.
Send them an invoice… it’s the principle of the thing.
Happy Birthday!
It’s a very common problem. I’m often finding my Flickr photos included without attribution in all sorts of things (I CC license them with non-commercial attribution requirements).
I respect this kind of mashup culture, but very few people seem to accept that copyright still holds on the web. Mind you, who can blame them: it’s part of the pirate culture that we’ve all helped create. I don’t even mind that most of the time; it gives people more freedom to make interesting things. Somehow, I find it more jarring when a big company (or a big blog) does it though, like has happened to you here.
It used to drive me nuts how many people were hot linking images. If I presume most thievy people were smart enough to steal without hotlinking, then I assumed most pictures just got not knabbed.
Although recently I had two requests to use pictures, one from a student, and one from someone writing a uni text book. Of course I granted them, because it’s nice to be asked.
I mean if someone downloads a picture of mine and uses it as a desktop, I really don’t care if they don’t ask (and wouldn’t really know). It’s when people start using them in things that quickly expand passed personal use that it becomes really really annoying.
Especially Carson, which considering the area they work in should know better.