Stealing images... with a slight difference...

LeoB

PCPhoto wrote: »

Lots of charities have funding for these sort of situations ...and have budgeted for it, its usually someone with good intentions trying to save a few quid and if caught plead ignorance (although there is sometimes ignorance there) ....but its quite often repeated by the same people.

if the charities are using volunteers - they should make sure their volunteers dont do something illegal - it might be bad form to sue a charity but its also just as bad for someone in a charity to break the law on behalf of the charity and try to think its ok.

Agreed. But I just got the impression or may have wrongly thought this was a local charity struggling to stay afloat in which case I would feel a softly softly approach might be best.

If it were a "big" charity of course they should pay. There are pretty good fundraisers with plenty of experience with big charities who try every trick in the book to make money or save money and if this is the case I would invoice them

PCPhoto

LeoB wrote: »

Agreed. But I just got the impression or may have wrongly thought this was a local charity struggling to stay afloat in which case I would feel a softly softly approach might be best.

If it were a "big" charity of course they should pay. There are pretty good fundraisers with plenty of experience with big charities who try every trick in the book to make money or save money and if this is the case I would invoice them

and they (sometimes) take the same view .... he/she's only a part-time or freelance photographer.... we don't need to pay them.

Dont get me wrong - I have no problem giving images to a charity and working for free/discount rates (if I'm available to work) ... but if someone involved in a charity wants to use an image they NEED to get permission from the photographer and if they dont they should learn that what they did was illegal.

The_Snapper

This might be of help to people in similar situations, a helpful link here.

Scruffles

KKV,
make them aware of it in a non threatening way,they may put a notice of apology on their site or newsletters and not carry it out in future calendars.

as a charity with limited money,if were to go to them on the offensive,it woudnt be giving them a chance to work on their practices and it woud affect the service users more than anyone if they were sued or asked for money.


have had a similar sort of experience with photo use.
the most popular cat website on the internet had used a photo of mine- was holding a needle/syringe and vial of the cats insuvet insulin,was wearing a rather unique medical ID bracelet and this was all done in front of dads old cubords so it was easily identified,it was still hosted on the cats own webpage there to prove it anyway.
-am a huge fan of the site and have been a paying member for years so had not mentioned it to them as part of the money pays towards a cat sanctuary,but had always felt uncomfortable with the article they had attached it to on the front page-it was about giving up cats because they have some sort of illness,was more p-d off about that association because woud never give up a cat regardless of what illness it had.

K_user

Voluntary groups can be a pain in the arse. And I’ve dealt with a few.

You rarely get thanked and its even rarer again that you get any credit. The way they see things is that they are giving their time, so you should too.

Sorry KKV, no matter what you do here you will lose. If you complain, they will b*t*h you out of it. If you don’t, they will continue on like nothing happened. You can’t argue with someone on a “cause”.

And on the topic of whether this is a “boring” topic, this is an open forum. If someone doesn’t want to read it, they don’t have too. If someone does, it’s a warning for the future. Something like this could happen to any of us. And those criticising will become very interested when they find themselves in a similar situation.

Personally speaking, I don’t find every thread on boards fascinating. Nor do I feel the need to tell the OP that I’m not interested in what they are saying. I come here to look at what others are doing and hopefully get some inspiration.

Threads like this are just as important as the next C&C of a sunrise over water, or a lonely tree/rock/woods landscape scene, or an HDR shot of an abandoned building. Because if you hang around enough, they always get repeated.

Anouilh

In the end, it may be a test of how much you like the charity involved and wish to support it.

All groups have weak spots, but it is strange that since a charity is a registered business nobody had heard of copyright.

(Off topic, I know, but Happy New Year to all here. I couldn't get round to everybody on Twitter.)

pixbyjohn

Anouilh wrote: »

In the end, it may be a test of how much you like the charity involved and wish to support it.

All groups have weak spots, but it is strange that since a charity is a registered business nobody had heard of copyright.

(Off topic, I know, but Happy New Year to all here. I couldn't get round to everybody on Twitter.)

Happy new year, you have been away from Boards 362 days or so

brightspark

Anouilh wrote: »

In the end, it may be a test of how much you like the charity involved and wish to support it.

All groups have weak spots, but it is strange that since a charity is a registered business nobody had heard of copyright.

I'm not condoning copyright infringement, but most voluntary groups have many more weak spots than they realise.

Surprisingly enough reading the pages of boards.ie is not yet a legal requirement to undertake voluntary activities.

From my involvement with a local voluntary group, I know that a lot of those involved are unaware many things that they should know. Perhaps if they had more help (free, they probably won't have the money to pay) then these volunteers could become more 'professional'

These areas of ignorance go much further than copyright, a lot of them are also unaware of child protection rules, health & safety, and other issues that those who work in a professional capacity would be legally obliged to know.

The committees/volunteers of these local groups need to be educated about their responsibilities.

As it appears the OP supports the charity involved, the right thing to do would be to inform them of their mistake, letting them know of the extent of the penalities that an organisatiion like Getty Images would automatically charge, and offer to help them avoid getting into trouble in the future.

Sending them a solictors letter (and charging a hefty penalty) would more than likely discourage those involved from continuing with their voluntary activities. Is that what people here really want?

Also if you are a professional doing work for a voluntary organisation you need to be careful to explain to them what they are getting from you and what isn't included.

Anouilh

Anybody thinking of working as a professional photographer could find this thread invaluable, I think.

A commission has been set up in Britain to deal with the issues of copyright law in the digital age and a report is due in March.

Ultimately, however, industry functions on "goodwill" and if a person is very particular about their personal image, over and above the job in hand, it can stop any meaningful outcomes.

Charities and NGOs are difficult to deal with because there is an illusion of total benevolence and a lot of emotional pressures around the subject of victims and hard cases. It's easy to end up looking ungenerous or hard hearted if one asks for basic courtesies from those who run these bodies.


Some of the most astonishing bullying I have ever seen has been amongst charity organisers, but quoting the notion of a "good cause" seems to make the perpetrators blind to their agendas.

Having worked as a hack and having seen the number of people who need to have their wounded egos salved for fear of losing face in public, I think this might be taken as a steep learning curve by the person who had their photo "borrowed". Solicitor's letters are so common in the media that one could decorate large interiors with an interesting new wallpaper scheme .

It was easier to get away with using work without payment in the past but with digital technologies the whole question of theft is a daily reality by anybody, even amateurs, who upload or download any material daily.

If a person finds the way editors have a gung ho attitude to their "work" difficult or demeaning, they will have to get used to finding a personal philosophy to protect themselves from what is a recurring problem.

And to answer the question about my absence from Boards.ie, since the contract one agrees to here is incomprehensible to me, I just stopped uploading photos rather than waste time wondering what my legal position is.

Every time one posts online, the contract agreed to should be examined with care. However, since I agree with Mark Twain's humourous view of copyright law (that it is the only thing God finds an insolvable mystery), I stay with Flickr and Twitter and look with interest at how Facebook will survive the buffetting of European scrutiny.

(Again, off topic, I am really very happy to have met so many fine photographers here who have helped me to make presentable photos.
So thank you.)

Anouilh

There is a group on Flickr called "Utata" where all the questions raised here get very full coverage.

You have to be signed in to read that sites discussions but it is worth the effort, I think.

The whole area of copyright is very tedious (even as so many have pointed out, boring) but so are traffic regulations to me, yet they must be learned.