As we mentioned on our June 4th Blog 'MyPhotos - Social networking images media revolution' photographer Daniel Morel posted 13 images of the Haitian earthquake's devastating aftermath on Twitter on January 12th 2010, the images attracted a lot of media attention and were soon distributed worldwide by outlets after seeking permission from Morel. The images were also used by the AFP (Agence France Presse), unfortunately the AFP found the images not on Morels Twitter account as the rest had, but rather on another account owned by a Lisandro Suero who had taken the images from Morels profile. As a consequence the AFP credited Suero, not Morel for the 13 images which they then distributed to media outlets around the world eager to report the devastation.
The AFP realised their mistake and by the evening of the following day had changed the credit on the image. However, they neglected to tell all their affiliates until nearly 6 weeks later that the credit information was incorrect, by which time it had been published by multiple media outlets including Vanity Fair, The Guardian and the New York Times, all of whom credited the AFP for the images.
Morel is now suing the AFP for the loss of income and copyright infringement to the amount of $150,000 per images plus damages.
The AFP in turn has filed a legal complaint against Morel for engaging in 'commercial defamation' claiming that they were within their rights since Morel granted a non-exclusive license to use the images by posting them on Twitter. Morels defence, however, is that the images were in fact posted on a separate site called TwitPic which automatically links to Twitter and according to the terms and conditions at the time on TwitPic all images posted are copyright to their owner.
Clearly the outcome of this case will be critical to all photographers and their use of the internet and social networking sites as a vehicle to display work, so we will all have to hope for a fair outcome. For more information on the case, including copies of the complaints visit www.dankennedy.net/2010/04/27/more-on-the-haitian-copyright-case/.
