Ok, here’s the deal:
As you may have seen from our previous blog postings the Daily Mail Online used 3 of our pictures that they took from our twitter feed on election night. (These are pictures we took at the St Vincent Polling Station in Dalston on election day where large numbers of people were unable to vote because the high turnout caught the people in charge of the polling stations unawares)
Other news publications got in touch, a few used (and paid) for the shots. From the Daily Mail, however, we heard nothing.
It was thus to our great surprise that the following day the Daily Mail Online exhibited 3 of our pictures in their story of the the polling station chaos.
So here’s what we did:
We wrote them an invoice. Obviously. Following the advice of @documentally we took the standard rate per picture recommended by the NUJ, £130, and multiplied it by 3 for use without our knowledge, consent, or permission.
Thats £390. And because they used 3 of our pictures we multipled that by 3.
So we sent them and invoice for £1170 pounds.
Here’s their reply:
Hi Emily
Thanks for the invoice.
Unfortunately we cannot pay the amount you have requested, these images were taken from twitpic and therefore placed in the public domain, also after consultation with Twitter they have always asked us to byline images by the username of the account holder.
We are more that happy to pay for the images but we’ll only be paying £40 per image.
Regards
Thats from Elliot Wagland, he’s the online picture editor for the Daily Mail, and despite his polite yet firm tone, he’s just plain wrong.
So what happened next?
We spoke to some friends, checked the terms on Twitpic (which clearly says “All images uploaded are copyright © their respective owners”), and wrote Elliot a similarly polite yet firm letter, explaining that he is wrong on the matter. Here it is:
Hi Elliot,
Thank you for your email.
I’m afraid that you are wrong about the terms of publishing on Twitpic. If you read the terms of service you will see that copyright is clearly retained by the poster:
http://twitpic.com/terms.do
Third parties who wish to reproduce posted images must contact the copyright holder and seek permission.
You should have contacted me if you wanted to use the photos, as every other news outlet did. had you done so, you might have been in a position to get the photos for £40′s each.
However you didn’t contact me, even though this would have been very easy to do, nor did you inform me that you had used them. Instead, I had to uncover that you had used them, that one of them was not credited even with the correct twitter account, and that none were credited as I would have asked them to be.
I have taken advice from a number of knowledgeable people about this matter, and all are in agreement that your paper has clearly breached my copyright, and that the amount that I have requested is perfectly reasonable.
I would appreciate your paying this invoice in full as soon as possible.
Yours,
Emily James
Project Director
Just Do It: Get Off Your Arse and Change the Worldwww.just-do-it.org.uk
www.twitter.com/justdoitfilm
www.facebook.com/getoffyourarse
And we think Emily’s got it spot on here. It’s not that we overly want the money (though it will be well welcome), its not that we’re overly possesive about intellectual property, its that Elliot Wagland & co completely failed to do the decent thing and ASK. Its just bad manners, Marina Pepper certainly wouldn’t approve. This is a classic case of the big guy not giving 2 hoots about the little guy. So now the little guy wants £1170… and an apology.
The case continues…
FOR UPDATE SEE OUR MORE RECENT POST Making a Deal with the Devil
(big thanks to @documentally – ourmaninside.com - for guidance on this matter)
Good luck in this one and I’ll be using that pricing structure the next time my photos are used without permission.
The Daily Mail is a vile publication, even if it is the main source of my income.
At least they bothered to reply – I got a deafening silence from The Sun over similar behaviour
Scandal, shame on them! Hope you get your money soon or there will be hell to pay for trying to set this kind of precedent.
Totally behind you the newspapers and their owners are screaming IP rights at the moment and will sue if they feel their content is being used without permission. A case of ear your own dog food Mr Daily Mail
Excellent work – I hope that they have the good sense to pay up, and learn to be polite about such things from now on… G’luck!
Good for you.
I recently sent an invoice to a magazine that used a picture from a blog I run without permission – I’ve let other publications use it for free when they were writing about my project, BECAUSE THEY ASKED. But it felt really good to send them an invoice with charges for both the use and for intellectual property infringement.
(Under Swedish law I also had the right to demand more money if I felt violated, which I didn’t but considered doing – hey, it was a religious magazine! I’m an atheist!)
Excellent decision to pursue this. It appears the Daily Rail claims to be the last bastion of decency and can’t do the decent thing – ask politely before use.
Little known fact: I used to work in the Daily Mail Contributions Dept.
When chasing payment, these are the guys you’ll want to speak to. They should get your account setup, sharpish and will also chase on your behalf.
FYI and all that,
James
i had a very similar problem with the Express once. they refused to pay although they’d ripped a pic out of a magazine that i’d taken. they eventually paid just £150 and only then after saying i had no way of proving it was my pic.. other than it was copywrited to me in the magazine, was of my ex girlfriend in front of my old house, holding my old mobile phone.. that, and, er, i actually took it and it was mine!
good luck!!
Sean
Good luck
Mmm, I wonder, would you have been so keen to make such a fuss had this been done by the Guardian, and not the Daily Mail?
I actually suggest that if they don’t pay up, go to another newspaper. I’m sure someone (The Sun) would love to get some dirt on another paper. Seriously. DM wouldn’t expect you to do that. Threaten them with it and if that doesn’t make them pay, do it.
Just put in a Small Claims Court action, you’ll get your money and costs by return..
@Rich, thing is, The Guardian is an intelligent paper with a good reputation. The Daily Mail is a right wing, racist paper that is full of scurrilous stories written by stupid arseholes. The Guardian would never do something like this.
I had an incident where a news agency passed on photos of mine, without credit or payment. When I asked about they said they’d get the papers to stop using them or credit me. Neither happened!
Hopefully they will pay if they are in the wrong – would be daft not to.
Jonathan Stevens – if I were giving you work, with your comments it wouldn’t be lasting any longer! How can you call one of your purchasers ‘vile’. Think you may need some lessons in Customer relations!
Wasn’t the Daily Mail the one which supported Mosley’s Blackshirts? And Hitler’s “sturdy young Nazis”.
@Freddie – The Guardian certainly would do something like that – http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/sep/01/guardian-photographers-protest –
Also, surely by stealing a picture from the internet and reproducing it without permission the Daily Mail are in breach of the Digital Economy Act 2010 and could have their internet cut off?
Good luck with this, I will stay tuned to see how it turns out
Daily Mail have used one of my pictures posted on a local forum in one of their stories online. The story was has also appeared on numerous other websites. I tried contacting them but they simpy ignored me. I would love to pursue it further as you have!
Freddie – The Guardian just annoyed hella photographers by unilaterally cutting rates and changing T&Cs on stock photography!
Emily – best of luck, and here’s to victory!
I used to hang out with some people who made a hobby for exploring abandoned buildings and posting imagine online – their pictures were often stolen by newspapers who trotted out similar public domain rubbish. The photographers ran a similar procedure for getting payment, but I’m worried here that you’re in essence asking for £130 per image plus a punitive fee of £260. That could undermine any claim in court that you are seeking justified payment. (yep, friends have gone to court with newspapers over these incidents, on principle).
Wish you luck with this, DM might think twice about stealing images in future.
Sounds like a case for the Small Claims Court.
Best of luck in nailing these nasty, arrogant fuckwits.
A friend of mine had a dispute with his local paper, exactly the same issue, multiple news outlets rightly asking for permission and subsequently paying to use the picture, but one deciding not to.
After they refused to pay and then utterly ignored further contact, his sent his lawyer to them to hand a notice, or something, to inform that he was suing from breach of copyright.
Four hours later, out-of-court settlement, pictures paid in full, with, its hard to believe, a free subscription to their newspaper.
Anyway, this is the sort of garbage I expect of the Daily Heil.
This is very helpful. The Daily Mail recently ran a story about an escaped parrot recently (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1274999/Escaped-parrot-lured-home-red-wine-crisps.html) and usedthe photo we took without our permission. They also failed to mention the fact that we rescued the parrot and decided to make up a story about it being “lured back home” with wine and crisps. We posted the pic on a local community forum in our efforts to find the parrot’s owner. The pic was also used in The Sun and The Times and a few other outlets.
We’ve written emails and tried to post comments about this with the various outlets with no luck. We’ve left a message with the DM’s picture editor but no response. Sending an invoice might be the only way to get a response. Thanks for the helpful post!
PS The Times version of the story credits “Stian Alexander” with the pic: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2963767/Parrot-Reggie-missed-booze.html
A source tells me that DM bought the pic from Stian as well, and a bit of research reveals that Stian’s name has popped up in these situations before: http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=39002§ioncode=1
Take them to the Small Claims Court (easy and cheap) and then let the whole world know when you’ve been successful. Too many of these arseholes get away with it.
@BristleKRS
They are allowed to unilaterally cut rates. Annoying, possibly. But it’s not the same as the Daily Mail’s discrepancy.
Ahh, Mr Wagland. I’ve had dealings with him since his publication used one of my photos from Flickr without permission or (originally) attribution. Someone really needs to take these folks to task properly. They did at least pay up in my case but they need to be fair and consistent.
On a bit of a tangent, the Daily Mail today have the second part of Paul Johnson’s memoirs, where he mentions Dylan Thomas, and the Daily Mail use a picture of Dylan, except it’s not, it’s of the actor Bob Kingdom who’s portrayed him. I wrote in on the comments page, but have they shown my remarks? Noooooo..
I had something similar from the BBC ONE show recently and photos under creative commons – its apparent a lot of researchers just do they want with photos they find and then only consider payment if they are found out. If you can involve a lawyer than do, it’s not worth the hassle for them. Good luck
Wow, thanks for the comments and encouragement everyone!
We can hardly believe that we’ve had almost 5000 people look at our blog in about 4 hours… and the numbers keep rising with every refresh.
Thanks to the NUJ, whose twitter seems to have spread the word, and to others who retweeted.
Of course, we’ve had no word back from the Mail. Surprise, Surprise.
In response to Rich and Freddie and others about the Guardian – as it happens, they were the only ones to offer a fee immediately and without prompting. The Times paid us £250 for the single photo that they used, and apologised off their own bat for not waiting for permission, (they asked, via twitter, and we responded saying yes and asking for a fee, but they had already put it up). So there seems to be a spectrum here – from very nice, polite behavior from the Guardian, to cheeky but ultimately respectful from the Times, to cheep, dirty, and rude from the Mail. So, much as you’d expect!
I found this via @NeilHimself – Mr. Neil Gaiman – and I wish you all the luck in getting this properly dealt with. The unfortunate thing is even if they do give you an apology and the money, they’ll probably just do it again and again.
So, one of my friends who worked on Big Brother 10, took a video on his phone after the wrap party of two of the contestants at a tube station.
He tweeted about it and put it on YouTube.
The Sun, from what I can make out, appeared to have ripped his video out of YouTube and placed it in their own video player which also has an adserver, thereby neither crediting the creator of the video, nor paying him, AND making money out of it through the ads.
Depressing.
I also found this via Neil Gaiman. Good luck from across the “pond” and I’ll be following this story.
Prediction: you’ll be hearing from the mail very soon, and they’ll pay what you asked.
:)
While it would be nice for the other papers to deservedly muck rake the Mail. Its probably not going anywhere. However, I suggest sending a tip off to Private Eye who would love this sort of thing and it at least might make the Mail spring into action as PE is the paper everyone on ‘Fleet Street’ reads and the last thing they want is reports on them outright plagiarising other peoples materials in the most embarrassing manner.
Join the British Association of Journalists — 02073 533003
Tell them Bob Miles sent you.
Dear Emily:
Do not let this newspaper get away with what they’ve done. I’m a US lawyer & pro photographer (and Neil Gaiman is a friend of mine) and had a similar problem with the L.A. Times many years ago. Someone had illegally scanned a photograph of mine of Harlan Ellison and uploaded it. Someone at the LA Times downloaded it and used it to illustrate a piece about Harlan. I saw it (no credit, of course, and horrible reproduction.) I sent my C&D and demand to the paper. When they got a copy of my copyright registration, they settled immediately. I don’t know particulars about your copyright law–don’t know if you’ve got a registration process–but what I do know is the people at the paper should know better. AND they don’t get to set the price when they’ve done wrong. I would recommend talking to a lawyer about this and finding out what damages might be. If you’ve got an equivalent of Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, they might be able to advise you. Or perhaps there are professional photographers organizations like ASMP or APA that could suggest someone.
Here, willful infringement is up to $150,000 per, (up to $450,000 in your case), but even at the low end of the scale it is more money than you’ve asked for. There is no way that a newspaper, no matter how much of a rag it is, can get away with saying they “didn’t know” or “didn’t understand.” They probably have staff attorneys to take care of things when someone infringes on their work.
Good luck to you.
Hello! It appears I’ve fallen through some kind of spooky swirling time vortex, because exactly the same thing happened to lithe, supple author MR MILLINGTON 9.3 years ago courtesy of sister paper The Mail On Sunday.
The thrilling saga, which Mil wins (spoiler! Oh): http://ThingsMyGirlfriendAndIHaveArguedAbout.com/mil_support/
Go chase ‘em. But one piece of advice I’ve always gone with is to never litigate for ‘justice’. Litigate because it’s due to you. Litigate because it’s your assets, your IP, your business that’s owed.
By the Daily Mail’s argument this means that anything on twitpic is Public Domain?
So what we need to do is everyone Screencapture Daily Mail pages and post them on Twitpic (to make them your own work remove all “DailyMail” branding and replace with “Daily Fail”)
Also add footnotes to correct their nonsense.
Anyone up for a Daily Fail twitpic campaign. Remember to change Jan Mohr’s name to Evil Whore.
I wouldn’t push it. Not if anyone close to you has an unconventional sex life, or has ever sought medical advice on a pyschiatric condition – especially an addiction! -or if they or you have a criminal conviction.
A tabloid newspaper won’t just use that to send your kids home from school crying: they’ll use it to discredit and destroy everything you have tried to do in politics and civil life – you, your partners, your relatives and your closest friends.
Thete is nothing you can do to fight a tabloid journalist. They already have your address, your phone records, your credit card transactions and, if you’re unlucky, your medical records.
They are vindictive and they have unlimited legal resources. Worse, they have frightening extra-legal resources and, as they are never prosecuted for using them, you may consider them above the law.
I wish you well in your dispute with the Daily Mail. But ‘moral victory’ is meaningless when evil is victorious in all practical matters.
Keep at ‘em, don’t let them off the hook. You might want to take a leaf out of the bank’s book and start adding £25 admin cost per e-mail/letter you send them…
Best of luck. If they stonewall, or don’t answer at all, you can always take them to small claims court, as the amount is less than £5k.
This should help:
http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/HMCSCourtFinder/GetLeaflet.do?court_leaflets_id=179
The problem is that they (papers and magazines) ALL do it, because they are in a win-win situation. If the photographer does not find out, they pay nothing, and if the photographer does, they will try to fob you off with all sorts of fairy tales as the “Independent” did for instance a few months ago. But in the end they *will* pay up.
You went about it the right way, especially by tripling the amount. Give them an ultimatum by which time you will want to have received a satisfactory answer (payment of you invoice), and tell them that failing that, you will pass the matter on to your solicitor. A letter from a solicitor will work wonders. I speak from my own experience and that of other photographers.
Remind yourself that what the Mail is doing here are just delaying tactics.
Public domain, my arse. Go and find out where the Mail’s picture editor parks his car, drive off in it and, when questioned, say it was parked on a public road/in the public domain.
Best of luck, although you do not need luck, just perseverance.
In haste:
Horrified by the Mail’s attitude in the original post, delighted at Emily’s reply to them, and I will be taking up Martin’s idea of the Daily Fail campaign.
I seem to remember that another photographer had something like this to happen, I think photo editor took the same point of view and then had to change it once the papers legal department received a court summons from the small claims court.
It costs comparatively little for the Small Claims court so give it a shot.
Just remembered it was The Independent.