Re: [Leica] WE WUZ ROBBED!-Copyright law

[Tina Manley <images@InfoAve.Net>]

At 01:13 PM 3/12/01 -0500, you wrote:
>Tina-
>
>Please be more specific about which portions of what I said, you believe 
>are not true.  I, like you, aggressively protect my copyrights but this "fair
>use" somewhat-gray area of the copyright law is where newspapers, 
>magazines, and television stations believe they have the right to publish many
>photograph without compensation.
>
>If a newspaper or magazine reviews a show of your photographs at a 
>gallery, they will claim, under the Fair Use portion of the Copyright Law, that
>they have the right to reproduce some of the images because it is a 
>critical review.  In this example they are probably correct and well 
>within their
>legal rights to do so (without compensation or permission).  If they write 
>a review of a local drummer and illustrate it with a "hand-out" publicity
>photo that they received from the drummer or his agent, this too is 
>generally assumed to be free from any copyright restrictions and without any
>compensation due the photographer.  Right or wrong this is standard 
>practice.  If Marc had placed a copyright notice and/or a restrictive 
>publication
>notification on his image, then they should not have run it without his 
>permission and/or compensation.
>
>Regards,
>Rob
>


And that's what I said, too, Rob.  If he had a copyright notice on his 
photo (and he did), they infringed on his copyright by publishing it 
without permission, payment, or accreditation.

But you said:

   "Unfortunately for you, if your photo was used by the newspaper for
 > >"editorial use", then it falls under the US Copyright Law's "Fair Use" 
doctrine
 > >which allows publication of the photograph for "...purposes such as
 > >criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies 
for
 > >classroom use), scholarship, or research". If that was how it was used,
 > >you have no legal standing against the newspaper's use of it.

In that case, the newspaper could use any photograph for editorial use 
without permission, payment or accreditation.   Photojournalists would not 
be paid for their photos because they would fall under the category of 
editorial use for news reporting.

and

"The magazine does not have to offer you anything."

The photograph is automatically copyrighted to Marc as soon as he takes 
it.  It can never be assumed to be free from any copyright 
restrictions.  Even the Fair Use doctrine requires that the copyright 
notice be included when the photograph is reproduced for limited use in a 
review or classroom.  A publication which is in the business of using 
photographs cannot use those photographs without permission, payment, or 
accreditation.  Newspaper and magazine editors know what the © symbol means 
and should always respect it.  There are occasions when I give permission 
for my photographs to be used without compensation, but never for 
for-profit publications or even for non-profit publications not run by 
volunteers.  If I find that someone has stolen the use of one of my 
photographs, you can believe that they will get an invoice from me; and, if 
the copyright notice is not present or mangled, they will get an invoice 
for three times the standard use rate.  The fact that something is standard 
practice does not make it right or legal.

Tina




Tina Manley, ASMP
http://www.tinamanley.com