Our laws have been shaped by public opinion over many centuries. You can trace copyright law back to the Statute of Anne 1710, and it has been evolving ever since.

Copyright laws, love them or hate them, are there for the good of society. Copyright law protects and encourage creative thinking. For example, if an author writes a book, it is only fair that the content of that book is protected so that no one else can simply nick the content and flog it on for their own profit. Society respects the individual for taking the time to write a novel, and allows the author to protect their work and ultimately make a living from it. If we didn’t have such protection, we wouldn’t have authors, artists, films, music, professional photographers and so on.

I undertake some photography work in my spare time, and I also act for a number of picture agencies and professional photographers. Most of my instructions relate to copyright theft – lets not beat around the bush, it is copyright theft, not copyright infringement. A typical instruction would be from a professional photographer who gets an image in the national newspapers, which is then promptly stolen by a whole host of other people who want to use it on their website/blog without paying for it. It is theft. If I leave a bicycle unlocked outside a shop, and someone rides off on it – that is theft. If I put an image on the internet and it is taken by another without consent – that is theft too.

I recently stumbled across a local photography competition on Facebook for a business group in Worthing which had about 15,000 followers. The photography competition was urging followers to submit their favourite photo which showed Worthing at Christmas. The prize for the competition winner was a couple of tickets to the opening of something in Worthing, I forget exactly what. As a keen photographer, I wanted to enter the competition but I missed the deadline as I was, ironically, out with my camera. When I logged back in to check on the competition results, it became clear to me that someone has in fact submitted one of my own images to the competition, and won! They nabbed it off my Flickr account.

When I raised my concerns with the competition organiser and the person who stole my image, I was not met with any sympathy, and the response was along the lines of: ‘she never said it was her photo when she submitted it to the competition’ and; ‘you should be flattered that she took it’! I said I was happy for the image to be used as long as I was given a public credit for it and the prize could be donated to a local children’s charity. Sadly that offer was declined, I have no idea what happened with the prize, and because of the “bad blood”?? the competition organisers didn’t want to use my image. I posted a short thread on the Facebook group about this incident, and the public reaction to my post caught me by surprise. I had a couple of people in support, but the overwhelming majority of public opinion was against me. The public opinion seemed to suggest a real lack of knowledge of copyright laws. Comments included statements like:-

1. If an image is on the internet it is free to use (which is utter rubbish of course)

2. Photographers should be flattered if people nick their images (again – utter rubbish)

3. All I was after was money (rubbish – I didn’t ask for any money, and I wanted to donate the prize to charity)

4. I shouldn’t take any action about the copyright theft

5. The woman who stole my image had done nothing wrong

 It is heartbreaking to see how public perception views copyright laws. The public knows that burning pirate DVD’s and CD’s is wrong, is a criminal offence, and a prison sentence could await them. Sadly, the public do not seem to understand that nicking a photo is wrong too. With the gap between public perception and the law being so wide, it is only a matter of time before something is done about this at parliamentary level. Indeed, there are already proposals to change copyright laws which are not going down too well with photographers.

I don’t think the lack of insight in to copyright laws is the fault of the general public, I think it shows a lack of promotion of copyright laws for people like photographers. If you go and watch a film, we have all seen the big anti piracy signs and adverts at the start of a film – it is all about educating the public. What have photographers done to get across their message on copyright? Not a lot! I am not saying that the photographers are at fault because they are not, but the industry as a whole needs to do something about it because copyright theft is endemic and is showing no signs of fading.

As a photographer I feel it is absolutely crucial to assert your intellectual property rights and pursue anyone who steals your image. Professional photographers really ought to do this to protect their livelihood and pensions (and lets face it, copyright forms part of their pensions). If we do not enforce our intellectual property rights then there is a danger that we will over time devalue our industry and we have already seen a massive cut in rates the national newspapers are paying for images. My message to all professional photographers out there is to stand up and be counted. Uphold and enforce your rights!

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