Avoiding Copyright Infringement on Social Media
Professional photographer Alexandra Cameron’s viral dispute with The Daily Mail, wherein her image was used out of context and without payment or license, has highlighted the issue of copyright infringement and how it can cause major setbacks for newsrooms and journalists if they are not careful to observe the proper laws. Cameron provided evidence that The Daily Mail not only used her images without permission, but later offered her a rate significantly below her asking price. Eventually, the dispute was settled for close to £2,000, £1,500 for the publication’s use of her image, and £500 for the online replication.
A copyright is a collection of exclusive rights belonging to someone who creates an original work. This person or persons is referred to as the “author.” The rights granted to these authors under copyright law include the right to “reproduce the work, to repost the work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies, to perform the work publicly, and to display the work publicly.” Work is copyrighted as soon as it is created—the author(s) do not need to accomplish any official process, a la getting a patent. Therefore, once someone has created a new work independently and has fixed it to a tangible mode of expression, such as writing, or taking a photograph, or even making a rough sketch, that work is copyrighted.
Most of the time, editors and journalists are unaware or misinformed on copyright law and how and when it is okay to use licensed content. One of the major things that causes this confusion is the terms of service available on social media platforms, such as Twitter. Twitter’s terms of service contain a clause that "authorises us [Twitter] to make your Content available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same." That means that if an image is embedded into a tweet, publications are allowed to embed the tweet with the content intact without licensing or payment to the original creator.
However, parties may not download the image (or other kind of content) and upload it independently of the embedded tweet: that falls under the laws of copyright infringement. The copyright of a picture resides with its “first owner,” even if it was uploaded to social media—which is what makes the license in Twitter’s terms of service that specifically covers embedding tweets an important distinction.
Another common point of confusion is “fair dealing” or “fair use,” which have similar definitions in the United Kingdom and the United States. Images from free databases, which do not require licenses, are fair use: stock images from Shutterstock are an example. There is a caveat that copyrighted material can be used for research, criticism and news reporting, provided that it does not provide a conflict of interest for the original creator, and if the amount of work taken was expressly for the purpose of commenting on the work itself, not enhancing or selling a different body of work, as The Daily Mail tried to sell their own article using a photographer’s licensed image. Rarely does this apply to images at all, but more often to video or audio clips—a good example of this is Youtube channel Dead Meat’s Kill Counts, which uses copyrighted scenes from films in conversation with criticism of the film itself, the genre of horror, or as a conversation centering around the original copyrighted material, rather than on original content created by the hosts of the channel.
Copyright transparency protects journalists, but it also can ingratiate the public. Press regulator IMPRESS showed, in a report, that transparency in most policies was essential to regaining public trust in the news: audiences showed more trust in the news when they had more access to and understanding of the media’s regulations and operation. "Our News Literacy Report found that the public is hungry for greater transparency from journalists about their newsgathering practices. Transparency is a cornerstone of public trust in journalism, which is desperately low, and failing to credit and attribute content properly only serves to undermine the profession further," IMPRESS said in an email to Journalism.co.uk.
"With the rise of AI and advancing technology in the industry, now more than ever journalistic content must mark itself out as a product of distinction by adopting this best practice."
