The New York Post declared this week that “Pinterest is the new Facebook,” and used the photo on the right to illustrate its story. The credit line said, “Courtesy Tory Burch via Pinterest.”
Actually, the photo was taken by Leela Cyd, and here’s an excerpt of the letter she’s sent to the tabloid
As concerns grew it became clear that for many people Pinterest’s real crime wasn’t just that they had created a system designed to encourage easy copyright infringement, but that they attempt to shift the blame for the ensuing infringements onto their users:
Pinterest, the hot new social sharing platform has a serious problem when it comes to the medium it’s designed to share. Despite careful wording on their about page that you agree not to post, upload, publish, submit, provide access to or transmit any content that infringes, misappropriates or violates a third party’s copyright… many (most) of the images on the site do just that. Several lawyers have weighed in on the controversy advising:
photographer Dina Douglas has come forward with some details regarding her dispute, and eventual settlement, with Shepard Fairey over Fairey’s usage of her image of a cancer survivor
Sentencing is scheduled for July 16. He faces a maximum of six months in prison, and fines up to $5,000.
The issue came up this past week when a certain type of meme (a concept that is disseminated via the Internet) started appearing on Facebook, many coming from Mashable. One such meme dealt with photojournalists.
This appears to be a format where the copy remains relatively the same (except for the subject) with the photos inserted from those found on the Internet and used for the most part without permission, credit or compensation to the photographer
Photographer Michael D. Jones alleges that after he refused to sign away his copyrights to this 1995 image for $6,500, Quincy Jones and AKG used it anyway without permission.
I can’t blame them for their rapture, because they and many others have discovered a perfectly legitimate business model for making a living with a camera: Selling Something Besides Photographs.
Link: British Journal of Photography
A deputy picture editor for The Daily Telegraph’s website has been caught arguing that editorial staff is not required to gain clearance for the use of images online due to the nature of the industry, BJP can report.
