Photographers petition British Prime Minister to reconsider copyright ruling
British photographers are up in arms over a proposed change to the copyright laws in their country that would allow anyone to use their pictures on non-commercial websites free of charge.
According to Photography Blog, British photographers are more than just a bit upset over an announcement made on Oct. 29th that a change was going to be made to copyright law in regards to photographs used on non-commercial websites. The new rules would allow for unhindered usage of copyrighted photos on non-commercial (i.e. personal blogs and the like) sites, and would not even require credit be given, let alone payment.
The photographers have started a petition to go to Prime Minister Gordon Brown that reads:
We call on the Government to abandon plans, announced on 29 October 2009, to allow free and unhindered reproduction of photographs without payment or credit on non-commercial websites.
This is completely at odds with the Government’s stance on file sharing of other forms of intellectual property (films and music) and raises the prospect of crippling thousands of small businesses while protecting large corporate interests.
The proposal uses phrases like “It must be seen to benefit all parties, not some at the expense of others” and yet the Government’s proposal does exactly that. It takes the work of photographers who have invested time and money in creating work, and gives it to people who have no relationship with that work, for free.
Photographic businesses are already under severe strain and the proliferation of digital cameras gives the impression that creating professional quality imagery is easy. This will further devalue the work of professional photographers and destroy the photographic industry.
As everyone knows, once an image ends up in something like Google Image Search, people view it as a free-for-all, and images get taken and used on a regular basis. While this doesn’t mean it’s right, it has become such a common practice that if everyone who did it was to get dragged into court, there wouldn’t be a court room left empty anywhere. It’s a double edged sword, but it is somewhat easy to see both sides of the argument.
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November 19th, 2009
that’s pretty bad, but they did say it was for non-commercial use. Meaning for maybe a blog site or what not? But I’m sure if you found your image on a magazine then you can sue for that still. But how do you regulate the internet? Plus with digital photography, to get commercial grade images a person still needs a lot of post processing knowledge that the average novice would never be able to do.
November 19th, 2009
if this is to come about then lets go one better, as well as photographers loosing out on commission etc., and basically loosing their copyright, how about file sharing will all music!!!!
The Government wants to hit photographers most of whom do not make megga bucks so why dont they hit the music industry and take away their copyright guessing they earn a lot more so wont miss it