One from the news: Blogger Alice Taylor, an amateur photographer, recently accused Mail Online of using her images without authorisation.

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) outlined the legal position to Amateur Photographer (AP) as two major news organisations stood accused of breaching photographic copyright by grabbing images to accompany news reports. 

British Journal of Photography reports  Over the past year, BJP has reported on numerous cases of copyright infringements involving the British newspaper.  Following Taylor’s case, a number of photographers reached out to BJP to tell of their ordeals. They invite all photographers that have seen their images used without authorisation to contact Olivier Laurent at bjp.news@bjphoto.co.uk.

Alice Taylor says she refused to allow the Daily Mail website to use two pictures she had taken of a shop on Oxford Street for a news piece published on 15th August.

Alice Taylor first published her images, which show skinny mannequins displayed in Gap stores, on her blog.  She was contacted by the Daily Mail but as they could not agree with the fee required for usage, Taylor refused to allow the website to use her pictures.  Later that evening, Taylor found that Mail Online had ignored her and published both of her images.  Taylor has now contacted the newspaper’s picture desk asking for compensation for infringing on her copyrights.

Mail Online told AP: ‘The pictures were published in error due to a breakdown in internal communications. ‘We regret the error and have now settled the matter amicably with the photographer.’ 

And earlier the BBC admitted that, at times, it will use Twitter images without first seeking the photographer’s permission.  Within hours of Amateur Photographer reporting this the  BBC issued this policy statement.  

Speaking in response to such practices, in general terms, an IPO spokesman said the same copyright rules apply to images posted on Twitter. 

The spokesman told AP: ‘It is advisable to assume that every image on the web belongs to someone and using it without permission will be an infringement of the owner’s rights.‘

He added:‘Use of copyright-protected work without the owner’s permission is most likely to lead to civil infringements. This can result in damages being paid to the owner.’ 

A lesson learned…