Zombie Journalism

If you’re to believe Agence France-Press – and many journalists who I’ve personally met – “regular people” don’t have the same copyright protections on the web as journalists. This isn’t true and hasn’t been true – and I’m glad a court said so.

AFP tried to argue in court that by uploading his photos to Twitter/Twitpic, a professional photographer was giving them permission to use and repurpose them. Last week, a court in New York’s Southern District declared what many of us already knew – putting photos on TwitPic doesn’t just make it up for grabs.

When I tweeted about this, I had a couple of journalists tell me it didn’t protect Twitter users’ photos, just those of journalists. This is a pretty common assumption I hear around the web and in the newsrooms I’ve worked in, so I don’t feel too out of line pointing out Virginia journalist Jordan Fifer for this tweet:

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   JordanFifer . @mjenkins News orgs have better case for "fair use" of Twitter pics if it comes from a layperson with no financial gain from the pic 30 Dec 2010 from web

He said the ruling only protected professional photographers and that the Fair Use Doctrine protects news outlets who want to use Twitpics without permission. Not true on both counts, though the latter isn’t as cut-and-dried.

Continue reading Ruling or no, always ask permission before re-using images on the social web