Newspaper has stolen my photo - what to do?

I work for a newspaper (production editor) and we have this happen from time to time: someone will send in a picture, eg a band shot, then the original photographer will get in touch to complain. We've been burned on google images before now (I'm sure there are people who buy every newspaper in the country to go through and look for such images).

Simple thing to resolve, we have to pay. Usually it's around £25-£30, sometimes a little more. Send them an invoice and covering letter explaining it's a breach of image copyright (ie no permission given) and ask for a picture credit should they use it again (plus a charge for reuse), and I suggest you carry similar warnings on your website. Charitable organisations or schools - don't charge them but ask for a picture credit (with email info).
 
Have a dig around the talkphotography foums, this comes up quite often over there. I believe there are recommended rates specified by a press union (think it might be the NUJ).

Be professional and don't overcharge, you want to be the person they think of when they next need pics from that team.
 
D.P. said:
They may not knowing be breaching any copyright laws if the headmaster gave them the photo.

And I think you will find that is the likely scenario, rather than stealing me from your website. You can try to get them to pay, and likely they will if you ask for a reasonable amount, but if they were explicitly given permission by someone else and had no reason to beleieve otherwise then they have a good defense. They may decline to pay and point this fact out to you, if you take them to a small claims proceedings then they will indicate that they received permission from a third party, your headmaster, and that any proceedings and claims are against him.

So as I said, if your headmaster gave them the photo with permission then it is he who you should be taking to a small claims proceedings. He is the one that lost you money here.

The responsibility of the newspaper was to check permission before printing, they most probably did this?
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Irrelevant, the paper should have sought permission from the photographer. They are souly responsible for the content of their publication and a simple "are you the photographer" question to the headmaster would have given them the answer.
 
neil_g said:
Irrelevant, the paper should have sought permission from the photographer. They are souly responsible for the content of their publication and a simple "are you the photographer" question to the headmaster would have given them the answer.
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Also, the paper must have known I was the photographer as at the bottom of the page it says 'Photo: Ben Alexander'
 
Oh and also for the original poster, make sure your iptc data tags are set on your images (can do this on save from most software or in camera on some models) with your name and copyright/usage info. Might save bother in the future.
 
If the photography sold or gave all rights of the photo to a third party and the third part then gave permission for the newspaper to use the photo then the photographer has no rights to the photo and the newspaper does not have to contact the photographer, ever.

If the newspaper thought that the headmaster had all rights to the photo and told the newspaper they could use the photo then the newspaper has done nothing wrong.

It is very rare that a company ever has to deal with the photographer directly. Mostly photos are purchased through an agency or third party or manage the rights. E.g. A magazine purchases a photo from Getty they don't have to contact the photographer, merely pay the stock agency the fee.
 
Guitarman0 said:
Also, the paper must have known I was the photographer as at the bottom of the page it says 'Photo: Ben Alexander'
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And if the headmaster gave them permission use the photo then they have done nothing wrong. It could have been that the headmaster paid you to take photos under the agreement that he owns all the rights to the photos. Therefore he could have given permission to the paper to print the photo. The newspaper are not to know this.

Again, it is normal to credit the photographer with for example a stock image purchased through a 3rd party. Many of my stock photos out in the wild have credits even although they are not required under the terms. They just paid the stock agency who paid me.
 
O.k. so I received a reply from my school teacher and it was indeed him who supplied the newspaper my photo provided they credit me. Now, I realise that he is at fault for not contacting me before hand as I explicitly asked him to do so if he wished to use the photo for anything else except the school website but is the newspaper at all at fault for using the photo before contacting me (knowing full well I was the photographer)?

I may just let this one slide as I do not want to fall out with my teachers but I will speak to him and remind he is not entitled to use my images for anything other than the school website.
 
stokecity_m said:
Why did you give the picture to your teacher at all?
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He is the one who manages the school website and he is the one I provided the photo to in the first place to publish on the school website (and the one who gave it to the paper). However I explicitly asked him to contact me before using my photos for anything other than the website.

To be honest I think I may just email him reminding him of the usage terms of my photos and ask him not to do it again.
 
Guitarman0 said:
He is the one who manages the school website and he is the one I provided the photo to in the first place to publish on the school website (and the one who gave it to the paper). However I explicitly asked him to contact me before using my photos for anything other than the website.
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no sorry, i just mean why would he want the picture, is it a school team etc?

Just curious really - doesn't help you either way :)
 
Guitarman0 said:
O.k. so I received a reply from my school teacher and it was indeed him who supplied the newspaper my photo provided they credit me. Now, I realise that he is at fault for not contacting me before hand as I explicitly asked him to do so if he wished to use the photo for anything else except the school website but is the newspaper at all at fault for using the photo before contacting me (knowing full well I was the photographer)?

I may just let this one slide as I do not want to fall out with my teachers but I will speak to him and remind he is not entitled to use my images for anything other than the school website.
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The newspaper was not at all responsible if they believed they had the rights to the photo which was seemingly explicitly given to them by the head teacher.

As I said before, if you put your photos on a stock agency and someone buy rights to use your photo then you have nothing to do with the contract since you gave a third party rights to distribute.

You could still try and contact the newspaper and ask for compensation, but if they decline then there is not much you can do really. Further actions would be against your teacher.

I expect what happend is your teacher gave them the photo and only asked that you be credited. The paper complied with the request and they had no reason to assume otherwise.
 
I figured it was going to be your Teacher, which as you say, makes things a bit awkward now.

The other twist though is being a pupil at a school, taking a photo of a school team, does the copyright not possibly belong to the school?

Reason I ask, is that in a business, as an employee, if you did something like take a photo for the business, or created some kind of product/program/patent/whatever it would be property of the company.

My main reason of thought was that when I was at University and we did creative work, even though we created it, the copyright actually belongs to the University. So essentially if you made any money out of something you produced at University, you actually had to run it by the University first and they would be eligible for a cut.
 
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