Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Copyright Infringement Suit Against Getty Images and AFP

Here's one for the "What the Hell Were They Thinking" file.

A trial starts today against Agence France Presse (AFP) and Getty Images for the willful violation of copyright law.  They are being sued by Haitian born Daniel Morel for the unauthorized redistribution of photos he took of the 2010 Haitian earthquake.

 The undisputed facts: Morel was in Haiti during the earthquake.  Took photos of the devastation and loaded those photos online.  A second individual copied those photo's and uploaded them to his online account, taking credit for them.  AFP downloaded the photos from this second account and distributed copies of them without permission from Morel, the original photographer.

When Morel contacted AFP about the unauthorized use of his material, AFP sued him for "commercial disparagement."  Morel then registered the photos with the US Copyright office and countersued AFP, the affiliates that had distributed the images and the media outlets that had used the photos.

Morel's attorneys presented electronic communication between Morel and AFP clearly indicating that AFP knew that Morel was the original photographer before they downloaded the photos from the second account.

A judge has already found in Morel's favor in regards to copyright infringement by AFP and Getty.  The issue now is whether that infringement was "willful".  Willful infringement would open AFP to damages beyond the $1.6 million in damages it currently faces for copyright and DCMA violations.  Luckily for AFP, the fact that they sued Morel despite knowing he was the actual copyright holder was ruled too prejudicial to be part of the willful infringement part of the trail.

That $1.6 million would be on top of the $7 millions AFP and Getty has spent on legal fees so far plus future legal fees (probably another $2 million.)  That's a minimum of $10.5 million as a result of their outrageous behavior.


It gets better if you read AFP's defense.  They cite Twitter's TOS as defending their use of Morel's photos.  That went over well when it was pointed out that the photos were loaded to TwitPic, not Twitter.  That's a related site with its own TOS that clearly states that copyright ownership stays with the person that loaded the images.

The only response to AFP knowingly using More's photos without permission, suing him when he complains and then using the TOS on a site that did not host the photos to begin with has to be  "What the Hell Were You Thinking".


For further reading:
Photographer takes on agency giants at copyright-trial
Morel Suit Press Release at Photo Attorney
Story on Editorial Photographers UK and Ireland
Russian Photos Blog
 and here
British Journal of Photography

On the last link, you'll need to search for articles.  Using AFP with Morel as search terms should work.  You might also want to search the Russian Photos site for additional articles.
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