“What is my picture doing in Russia?”
Internet without borders
First a few important questions: How often are images used illegally abroad? As the author, what can you do about it?
Here’s a recent real-world example: Last week I received an email from a journalist. He had posted an exceptional photograph on a social networking site and within just 24 hours it had already been shared three million times. The picture raced around the world in no time, showing up in Google Images over 500 times. It could be found on websites in Russia, Asia, the US, as well as all across Europe. It was published repeatedly; even a stock photo agency snapped it up and added it to its own collection. That’s how fast images circulate throughout the web!
And it just goes to show you, it only takes a second for pictures to be posted to various media, blogs and websites – not only at home but anywhere in the world. The internet knows no national boundaries.
What did the person who took this snapshot learn from his experience? Firstly: Just how much demand there is for highly attractive photographic content. Secondly: He didn’t get a cent for his picture: nothing from the magazines and press services that used it and nothing from stock photograph agencies that make it available in their own collections.
It also shows a shocking lack of a sense of right and wrong when it comes to users’ treatment of content that’s not their own. And this applies not only to ordinary folks but to professionals and commercial users as well, who often don’t seem to care whose picture they’re using or who holds the copyright to it. In doing so, they are violating the law and causing photographers and agencies great harm.
Global use
How should a photographer deal with this situation? What can be done to prevent the illegal use of images?
It is impossible to entirely prevent illegal use. Once an image becomes publicly available, there’s no way you can prevent it from being widely disseminated.
If the amateur photographer mentioned above, had wanted to put the photograph to commercial use, he should have turned it over to a professional stock image agency, which could have profitably marketed it, both at home and abroad.
The amateur photographer in our example has little chance of taking action against any illegal use, because to do so he would need to be familiar with the legal particularities of each individual country. Or he would need to find a reliable partner in each country that could safeguard his rights there. This involves a great deal of time and effort and is seldom successful.
Many agencies that operate domestically and especially those that operate in the international market collect and monitor the use of their image collections in order to safeguard their business model and ensure their commercial viability. They retain monitoring services that operate internationally and which possess the technical capacity to track their images online.
Monitoring services operate internationally
Stock image agencies employ monitoring services for their images to ensure that these tasks are being properly handled by professionals. Good monitoring services are familiar with specific regional particularities. They draw on an international network of experienced partners present on the ground and able to professionally represent the client’s interests locally. These partners are experienced in overseeing the interests of originators and are always well versed in the specific regulatory framework of each respective country. We, for instance, place great value on having partners that operate in the countries in which possible infringements have occurred. There is no point in trying to protect and enforce our clients’ rights from Germany.
But the same applies internationally: to systematically safeguard a business operating in a digital environment requires professionally structured rights management. An image can lose value through uncontrolled reselling and use, where there is no exact information on how it’s being used. This leads to price erosion, which works to the disadvantage of the photographer, the image agency and other media enterprises.
Copyright – a patchwork of national regulations
Nevertheless, it must be pointed out that even within Europe there is unfortunately no common legal framework for protecting copyrighted material. This starts with the requirements for documenting an infringement acceptable to a court of law or the obligation to list the owner of a website in the site’s legal notice. Plus, all costs associated with legal enforcement against a clear infringement of copyright often must be borne entirely by the copyright holder.
In this regard, I should clearly state our clients’ view as to when action should be taken against a possible infringement. Nobody takes legal steps when content is used without permission on a private website or in a private blog. But when the unlicensed use of copyrighted material allows a website operator to derive an economic advantage over competitors who are paying licensing fees for the same content, then our clients take proper steps to enforce their rights.
The sort of flat-rate web fees proposed by the EU Commission that are not calibrated to the relative success of individual agencies or photographers are, therefore, the wrong way of going about protecting the industry’s interests. Compensation should continue to be based on the quality of services offered by each individual provider.
Social networks as resonance accelerator
By posting an image to a social networking site, the journalist mentioned above was consciously making it available to a very broad public audience. His goal was maximum exposure, which he achieved through the 3 million views his picture received. It’s questionable, however, whether this is the best way of seeking compensation, because it’s only through the controlled distribution of content that real value is generated. Though maximum resonance was achieved, it produced no economic effect. What could he have done instead? In principle, the photographer should have turned the picture over to an agency in order to generate earnings and professional recognition from having created it.
Conclusion
Copyright monitoring is an essential element of every agency, media company and photographer seeking to safeguard their business model. Internationally, rights can only be successfully enforced through professional networks. Domestic legal frameworks are extremely heterogeneous and can be obstacles to copyright holders.
Sven Friedrichs, managing partner at cpa Copyright-Alliance GmbH, a market leader in copyright monitoring, member of the German Association of Press Agencies and Press Archives (BVPA).
