Newspaper prints my photo, forgets to tell me

Update: This entry was posted after my initial exchange with The Mirror’s art director, who told me to work this out with the artist, where it turns out they got the image from. Since writing this, Mirror editor Alastair Sutherland contacted me to explain the situation, and assured me that barring proof that I allowed free use of this image for publicity purposes, they will indeed pay a proper licensing fee. For the record, I do not believe that The Mirror intentionally “stole” my image, or acted in bad faith. Rather they violated my copyright out of negligence, which is unfortunately all too common as fact checkers and the like are becoming increasingly scarce in today’s newsrooms.

Would you steal this image? Didn’t think so.

On the drive down to Vermont Thursday I was leafing through the pages of The Mirror, one of Montreal’s weekly newspapers. I was surprised to see one of my photographs—a shot of spoken word artist Alessandra Naccarato performing at our Art Threat launch party—peering out at me from the newsprint. Surprised, because I had no idea my photo was going to be published. The Mirror simply used this image without my permission. Not cool, or legal for that matter.

So I sent a courteous email off to The Mirror’s art director notifying him of the issue, requesting that the publication print a correction and send fair payment for use of the image. Standard stuff. Today I received a response that apologized for the “inconvenience”, but did not entertain the notion of properly licensing the photo. They laid the blame on the artist depicted in the image, who presumably told The Mirror where to find the photo sent The Mirror a jpg of the photo (as is available on Flickr). Unfortunately for them that doesn’t relieve them of their obligations to ensure they have the permission of the copyright holder before publishing an image.

Now, while I seriously doubt they acted in bad faith and intentionally “stole” my image, running a publication requires significant diligence to ensure your butt is covered when it comes to copyright. This is particularly true in print, where unlike their online equivalents, one can’t “unpublish” content.

Now, if I accidentally walked out of a store with a bowl of candy beans from the corner store and got caught, and the owner offered to drop the matter if I just paid for the damn beans, I would consider myself lucky. Not that I would even take a bowl of candy beans—come to think of it I actually hate candy beans, especially the black ones—but you get the idea.

Maybe I should just start reprinting The Mirror’s articles in full on this website and see if their relatively lax attitude towards copyright is consistent. Hopefully they make this easy and send over a reasonable (which in editorial photography means piddly) licensing fee. Just in case they don’t, however, I better remember to renew my membership with the NPPA before it expires later this month.

As a related note, this incident has me thinking about whether Flickr is a photo theft enabler. While the photo sharing site has generated stock sales for me in the past, I wonder how often my images are stolen (or abused through negligence) by commercial operations simply because Flickr makes it so easy to search, find, and, well, steal your images.

On the flip side of all this, The Progressive printed a photo of mine from this summer’s protest in Montebello, Quebec in their most recent issue. The staff of this non-profit magazine was a pleasure to deal with, and their payment generous by industry standards. They’re a great publication, and deserving of your eyeballs—and your support—so do yourself a favour and subscribe.

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November 2, 2007 · 1683 commentshttp://robmaguire.com/blog/2007/11/newspaper-prints-my-photo-forgets-to-tell-me-and-pay-me/Newspaper+prints+my+photo%2C+forgets+to+tell+me2007-11-02+19%3A47%3A32Rob+Maguire