One of my photos used by national newspaper without permission.

Soldato
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They'll no doubt claim that the photo was sent to them by someone, possibly purporting to be the photographer. Not sure what the law is here but I'd assume it's up to them to determine the provenance of the photo before using and not simply taking the word of the person submitting it.
 
Soldato
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They'll no doubt claim that the photo was sent to them by someone, possibly purporting to be the photographer. Not sure what the law is here but I'd assume it's up to them to determine the provenance of the photo before using and not simply taking the word of the person submitting it.
Having worked for quite a while as a photography editor for a weekly student paper (of around 35 sides + pullouts), I find that quite a remarkable statement. For me to have done that for our images would have taken a considerable time. Do you have any idea in the slightest how much work that would take for a daily paper?

In general, papers tend to use free stock images and cheap stock sites as much as possible. It is your right to ask for money in return for the print, but I'll tell you now a) it been sent to them by someone and printed in trust, so at best I'd imagine you might get some kind of apology. b) it's not worth your time to enter into some kind of battle over it for the money they'd give you anyway.
 
Soldato
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Are you really that fussed? It's not exactly a piece of artwork. It's an amusing snap for sure but it's not as though your original intention for the piece was to make money, thus you haven't lost any revenue from it.
 
Associate
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Paragraph 8 of their T&Cs may have you over a barrel tbh, as said above. I'd try the softly softly approach, as per Raymond Lin's suggestion above. See what happens, you have nothing to lose by sending them a letter by recorded post!
 
Associate
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Some people's reactions to this are a bit strange/unrealistic. Here's my take:
You posted a picture online, it's been passed around a bit, and has now appeared on a national newspaper's website, well down the page, as part of a minor filler feature. They are infringing your copyright, but it's hard to claim that they are gaining any particular commercial advantage from your specific picture.

If I were you, I'd do the following (some of which has already been mentioned):
a) Watermark all pictures you publish to the internet.
b) Email the web editor to point out that they are using your image without permission. I'd consider giving two of the three options - 1: you are happy to allow them to continue using it if they credit you and pay you a small fee (£50-£250), 2: they can continue using it if they credit you, or at least replace it with a watermarked version from which people could contact you (probably only worth it if you have other photos you'd want to sell in future), 3: if neither of the first two, they should remove it.

Please don't use the small claims court/moneyclaim etc for this. Apart from anything else, you'll end up wasting more tax payers' money than you'll win back, and it's not as if you have a huge moral point to make. If you ask them to remove it and they refuse, then that would be another matter.
 
Soldato
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I can't seem to find anywhere on your pbase site that says it's copyrighted material, you put it up on the interent for all and sundry to see, public domain surely?

EDIT: Oh there it is, hidden away on the pbase home page, might want to make it plain on every image/page.
 
Soldato
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I can't seem to find anywhere on your pbase site that says it's copyrighted material, you put it up on the interent for all and sundry to see, public domain surely?

EDIT: Oh there it is, hidden away on the pbase home page, might want to make it plain on every image/page.

It's automatically copyrighted anyway, papers run the risk over publishing images from the web. If someone comes back to them saying it is their image then they will normally pay a royalty providing you can prove it is your image I'd assume.
 

GeX

GeX

Soldato
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I can't seem to find anywhere on your pbase site that says it's copyrighted material, you put it up on the interent for all and sundry to see, public domain surely?

EDIT: Oh there it is, hidden away on the pbase home page, might want to make it plain on every image/page.

indeed, you don't need to say "COPYRIGHT ME 2009!!!11" on every image, thats not how our copyright law works
 
Caporegime
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Paragraph 8 of their T&Cs may have you over a barrel tbh, as said above. I'd try the softly softly approach, as per Raymond Lin's suggestion above. See what happens, you have nothing to lose by sending them a letter by recorded post!

And? If he didn't send it to them then they haven't a leg to stand on. To me both paragraphs 6 and 8 appear to be with regard to people sending in their own work and writing comments and it even says
8.3.2. for which you have not obtained all necessary licences and/or approvals;
As the person hasn't it has no regard to the op.

Send them an invoice for a couple of hundred. Just because it wasn't a piece of art and a main page story doesn't mean you shouldn't be paid for it.
 
Soldato
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Sorry, but what?

Please don't use the small claims court/moneyclaim etc for this. Apart from anything else, you'll end up wasting more tax payers' money than you'll win back, and it's not as if you have a huge moral point to make. If you ask them to remove it and they refuse, then that would be another matter.

5 figures? calm down..

i think around £250, but i'd bump it up a bit due to the whole copyright theft issue.
Do you have any experience or knowledge to back up your shock at my assertion? Where did you get £250... your ass? Sounds like it.

Some text I wrote for a website of mine (when I was 13 years old) was lifted by a regional news paper's website 5 or 6 years later - about 300 - 400 words were copied. I took them to court for £1750 - I was guaranteed to get at least that.

They settled out of court for £2000 (which included my £250 expenses). If I pushed for any more, the defendant could have persuaded the court for a formal IP assessment and investigation, where I risked getting less. I'd risk getting less because such an investigation would accurately assess the amount of money they earned from lifting my text and the amount of money or opportunity I had lost. Seen as though the offending website was a tiny portal website for a town (as part of a larger network of sites covering the region), this risk was high.

How much would I have licensed the text for if they had approached me? Probably £50 per 100 words. Sucks to be them that they tried to steal my work and pass it off as their own, though.

Before coming up with figures, seek legal advice. If the Daily Mail printed your picture, you could easily press for more - any IP investigation would swing in your favour if it came to that (if the newspaper is a national).
 
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Soldato
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Paragraph 8 of their T&Cs may have you over a barrel tbh, as said above. I'd try the softly softly approach, as per Raymond Lin's suggestion above. See what happens, you have nothing to lose by sending them a letter by recorded post!

What has the T&C's got to do with the op?
 
Associate
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Assuming that the photo was taken directly from Pbase and wasn't submitted to them directly then the T&C's probably aren't relevant. But is it possible to demonstrate that this is the case? What if the paper claimed that it was submitted to them, say by a family member or by anyone else in the world who may have downloaded the photo from Pbase and submitted it to them? The grievance would no longer be with the paper, but with that person who submitted it, as in accordance with the papers T&C's they may be within their rights to use the image.

Whilst it should be their responsibility to prove that the image was submitted to them, bear in mind that an organisation such as a national newspaper of this nature will be well versed with people trying to make some kind of legal claim due to the cr@p they publish etc, and they certainly won't loose sleep over someone claiming copyright of a photo they used. I doubt they'll even reply to a letter (I'd love to be wrong here, but I don't have the perception that these papers are considerate organisations). This is why I would suggest a soft approach as I think it may be more likely to strike a note of guilt and compassion and obtain some sort of result. It's always possible to apply more pressure to create a reaction, but a high pressure initial approach may stimulate the wrong kind of reaction.

I'm not claiming to be an expert, merely passing on my views and suggesting some caution towards the manner in which the issue is approached. There is a lot to be said for a calm and calculated approach rather than an all guns blazing approach, and I hoped that my comment might provoke this thought. I didn't expect a backlash! Think of it from the papers POV and consider that the image may have been submitted to them (albeit by a third party), and the T&C's are potentially very relevant.
 
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