Updated 5/30 22:34 – see below
As a blogger, it’s interesting to swap notes and chat with outfits that perform journalism full time for a more traditional publishing company. One of the differentiators traditional journalists often cite between their organizations and that of the typical blogger is that the journalists understand professionalism and ethics. That hasn’t been my experience locally; the Portland Mercury has repeatedly infringed on the copyright of two OurPDX authors.
In October, our very own Dieselboi blogged about finding the Hung Far Low sign in Scappoose. The Mercury’s news reporter Matt Davis then posted Dieselboi’s photo on Blogtown without asking permission. After being contacted privately, Davis updated the post to more accurately reflect that it was Dieselboi’s photo and discovery.
Last month, Mercury blogger Sarah Mirk used Dieselboi’s photo again, without any sort of attribution or permission, copying the file locally to the Merc’s servers even though she pulled it from Flickr (which is a violation of Flickr’s terms of service). If you note the second comment on that post, you’ll see that Dieselboi pointed out (publicly but quietly) that she’d swiped his photo. When contacted, the Mercury apologized and claimed she was a new reporter who didn’t fully understand copyright.
Yesterday, it came to my attention that Mercury intern Rachael Marcus illegally used one of my photos in a Blogtown post about CubeSpace. The photo in question was from a commercial photoshoot and had only been published in one location on the internet (on my photography blog). Marcus copied the photo to the Mercury’s servers and used it without permission or license. She did provide a link indicating the source of the photo, which doesn’t make it any less illegal. A screenshot of the illegally-used photo:
Blogtown Copyright Infringement
Shouldn’t a basic understanding of copyright be a prerequisite to writing for a newspaper? How many times will this happen before the management at the Mercury chooses to provide some education for their employees? I can only wonder how many of the other photos on Blogtown have been stolen and used without permission…
Update: – Mercury Editor Wm. Steven Humphrey apparently tried to post a comment here but had problems. He emailed me and asked me to post this as his response:
Steve Humphrey here from the Merc. Just wanted you to know I pulled that picture, and I’m sorry that happened. I know that’s a bummer, and might make you feel that others don’t value your work. As far as I’m concerned that’s the furtherest thing from the truth. That was Rachael’s first day, and I didn’t get a chance to talk to her about blogging etiquette, so that’s my bad.
[text deleted regarding failed blog comment attempt]
Again, sorry.
Steve
I think the fact that their response includes the word “bummer” and the phrase “my bad” pretty much sums things up nicely.
{ 34 comments }
“One of the differentiators traditional journalists often cite between their organizations and that of the typical blogger is that the journalists understand professionalism and ethics.”
Do traditional journalists consider the Portland Mercury one of their own? I’m a total outsider to that industry, but I would have thought not.
We most certainly do not. another differentiator is that we have editors, which they do not, at least for online content.
Those silly interns.
Marcus copied the photo to the Mercury’s servers and used it without permission or license.
I guess I’m not 100% clear on this stuff then. My understanding from a few years ago was “hotlinking” was bad and bloggers were encouraged to take host a copy of a photo on their own site, with proper attribution of course. Is copying a photo to my own server verboten?
What should the aspiring blogger do when he wants to publish someone else’s photo on his blog? What’s the procedure?
Aaron’s right in that you should ask – but if the photo is being hosted on a photo repository site such as Flickr, you should really link to the original as done by the photog.
That way, the photog knows just where his/her image is being used, for starters…
Part of the problem may be that flicker’s system for labeling the permissions of fair use is somewhat complicated, especially since many of those posting photos doesn’t understand the in’s and outs of the different flavors of rights. One has to be very careful, as some photos require attribution, others none, others can’t be used at all. This is a great site that helps cut through all of that to make sure you are doing the right thing: http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
@FoodDude Creative Commons is very simple and easy to label on flickr. Don’t see why anyone should have a problem with it.
by: attribution – someone can use this for anything as long as they credit the creator
nc: no one may use this for commercial purposes, i.e. advertisements or posters they sell
by-nc: Combo of the above
sa: No derivatives. You may distribute the work and share it, as on a blog, but not change it.
by-nc-sa: Should be obvious.
What’s so hard about this? If you can take a photo and post it on flickr, you should be able to easily understand that.
And to Aaron’s point, the photograph that was used this last time was taken from his commercial photography site without permission, and NOT Flickr.
(editor’s note – this comment was stuck in spam filter & posted on 6/8/09)
That photo has been removed. Sorry about that, it was Rachael’s first day, and I didn’t get a chance to talk to her about blogging and photos. I’ll be more on top of it in the future.
Wm. Steven Humphrey
Editor
Portland Mercury
Just to clairfy, I wasn’t implying that my explanation of creative commons was, in any way, related to Aaron’s problem, which I have no comment about.
Chris: the short version of “What should the aspiring blogger do when he wants to publish someone else’s photo on his blog?” is ask. Once you have permission, it’s possible (and probable) that the content owner may want you to host the photo on your own server.
(editor’s note – this comment was stuck in spam filter & posted on 6/8/09)
Aaron, just wanted to apologize for the Mercury posting your picture without your okay. It was Rachael’s first day of blogging, and I neglected to give her the heads up about stuff like that, so that’s my bad. I certainly wouldn’t like it if people were taking my stuff and posting it hither and yon, and we’ll certainly try to be more careful about that in the future.
Again, sorry!
Wm. Steven Humphrey
Editor, Portland Mercury
Whether or not the Mercury bloggers are “traditional journalists” or if they’re running a newspaper is irrelevant. To use someone’s photo in a publication in this way is stealing, and it doesn’t take a J-school degree to know that.
I cringe to use the word “stealing,” because I’m a big fan of the free culture movement and of the broadest possible application of fair use laws. But fair use law does not cover this case to my understanding, and the fact that they swiped something from what was obviously a professional photographer’s site is ludicrous.
Hey… guess I’ll be the wallflower for the next dance for saying this, but really Aaron *AND* Betsy…
So what is the real purpose of this article…? To validate blogging’s ability to accuse traditional journalism of copyright infringements? That’s all that got done here.
You see, a traditional paper wouldn’t say anyone infringed on copyright as a reported article.. they would recognize something resembling the rule of law, and report it as an accusation, no matter how blatant, unless proven by the law, or admitted and acknowledged. And a mistake in use was acknowledged.
And everyone looks fairly satisfied with the outcome of dieselboi’s pic so that there is no wrong that cannot be righted – I notice that the Civil Liberties Union and The Federal Courts are not chiming in … oh… except the newly self-appointed Newspaper Police.”…looks like a librarian in a red dress.”… The idea being that a librarian is unattractive, nothing can change that, and trying to make a librarian attractive is a travesty….or so I have heard from a prominent blogger.
Missattribution of an image in the profession is one thing, but W. R Hearst is *dead* ppl…. and so are his journalistic standards… Ironically, this display of incomprehension of journalistic practices and intentions around context , and intentions and application of law, only underscores how very far removed from the Fourth Estate blogging can get. So don’t start patting yourselves on the back and buying t-shirts that say “Muck Racker” on them quite yet.
And one more thing….the English kicked the Puritans out of England because they were such incredible tight a$$hats no one could crack a smile without someone getting burned as a witch… totally killed May Day and all that for everyone… So, what’s with the crusade?
When you folks who supported and authored this blog site article are as tightly wound up about maintaining your own journalistic standards in your own publication as you are about the Merc’s, you’ll have room to talk… but, oh, wait…. you *never* will because your not a news press outlet … your a blog…. you aren’t held to the same journalistic standards or same legal and financial obligations and standards as a journalistic business…and you won’t be able to claim those unless you are one…. and indeed, *that* is what it actually looks like when you put a librarian in a red dress…. just sayin’
First, it’s “you’re”, not “your”.
Second, I think you’ve inadvertently hit the nail on the head on at least one point. The prevailing attitude toward any website that isn’t associated with a “real” news outlet, is that it is somehow unprofessional, amateurish, and irrelevant.
Ostensibly, the Merc performs to some higher standard than us mere bloggers, and yet respect for copyright is taken fairly seriously at OurPDX, and is a frequent topic of discussion “behind the scenes” here.
I’m not going to claim that we’re journalists, at least I’m not going to claim that *I* am. I nevertheless think it’s perfectly valid to point out a double standard where it exists, particularly when it involves the copyrights of *our* authors, and there are multiple occurrences.
The “Grammar Nazi” defense… lovely example of opening argumentation to discredit the position of opposition in blogs… classic.. thanks for making my point
I think it’s directly on point, actually. If you want to call yourself professional, and be treated professionally, things like spelling and grammar matter.
Now that we’ve hashed over the first five words of my comment, do you care to address the rest?
You asked what is the point of this article? My intention was to bring public exposure to the problem in the hopes that the pattern of behavior will change, since dealing with it privately hasn’t led to a resolution. Legal options were considered; I hoped that in the grand scheme of things this wasn’t something big enough that it could only be resolved by a lawsuit.
I’m not entirely sure how to respond to the rest of your comment but with regards to the final paragraph, if you have any examples of repeated copyright infringement on OurPDX, I know that we’d love to hear about it so that it can be addressed. I’ve never claimed that the Merc needs to be perfect… I can forgive an occasional honest mistake. If the issue had gone away after the first incident or even the second, this blog post wouldn’t have been written.
Well, I am waiting for you to state how it happens that this is such a protection of rights that you find use of inflammatory language and witch hunting (… how many more.. Oh Dear Lord… how many more thieves in the night lurk at the Merc, waiting to sic dingos on your babies and steal you pics…) is justified. All you did was create a lot of buzz around this article to increase your Google juice. You were out to push buttons to get a response.
This is a pattern, a strategy that OurPDX has been cultivating to position as a local journalistic leader in the converso … beginning with the documented opposition of copy like “sexy, sexy sponsorships” and other promotions that was Puritanized to force controlling inclusion in the SoMe PDX Club awards w/o having to contribute to it’s development and growth…. you know, do the work? Sign up to help, rather than bitch about a strong turn out in a short time despite short on resources? (Hey… bet you could volunteer at Merc!) And then rears it’s head in other places it doesn’t belong. You might wanna rethink your branding, cause it’s starting to suck.
I think Merc’s intentions and mistake oversight were much more authentic and transparent than the conscious intentions of this article.
Se ya in the play ground… maybe we can talk later.
Um, Teresa, perhaps we should have talked offline about some of your resentments or concerns. You’re clearly still pissed about what I might have said before months ago in a private one-on-one email conversation to someone who wasn’t you.
We could have, of course, during the two or three times I saw you in person in the last 72 hours — times where I had no clue about your opinions about what I’ve said before or who I’ve said them to. (How would I? I had no clue that you’d seen that email, for starters…!)
Or any of the other multiple times we’ve seen each other in the last couple of months, of course. If you have an issue with me, what I might have said before, or my perceived attempts to wrestle myself into some sort of leadership position, take it up with me directly in person, won’t you? Thanks. But it might make more sense for this particular conversation to leave things like Hearst, the American Revolution, red dresses, or librarians aside and stick to the issue at hand.
And — just to make it crystal clear to those sitting in the sidelines with their popcorn, pulling their lawnchairs closer to the fray — Aaron wrote a blog post on OurPDX. I didn’t goad him into it, nor did I rub my hands together in glee about launching a witch hunt and/or the Next Blog Drama to game our traffic. A lot of what PDXSays is pulling into her multiple comments are clearly resentments and/or mis-perceptions that she has with me that might have been cleared up had she chatted with me in person. (Or not, of course…)
But I understand it’s much more fun to drag them out here for all to see…!
Whoops, Betsy… there was not a private conversation about any of the mentioned …. at least not between you and me. Perhaps you confuse me with someone else? Everything I mention, you created in either open stream or open forum.
Good luck with that journalism standards thing….
I will chime in with my two cents. I’m not a professional blogger or photographer – meaning, I don’t get paid for any of this. When someone links to a photo of mine on Flickr, I usually contact them and engage them in conversation letting them know it is a copyrighted photo and if they would like to use it, just ask. Almost all the time, I get attribution and all is good. With the Mercury, all I had to do is ask. My challenge is that I as the owner of the photo has to do the asking. The Merc is famous for calling out other publications on copyright or similar subjects, so why can’t we?
Aaron is a professional photographer. He makes money at it. The photo in question was owned by him and licensed to a client. That’s bread and butter in this economy. I’m all for free and open, but will free and open pay the mortgage? My point is that when you start infringing on someone’s livelihood, that is where the line gets crossed and needs to be addressed.
I have to go with you on this point.
Did anyone loose money or get a refusal of payment? If I understand correctly, this is not the case, and all are satisfied with the outcome.
My point: OurPDX has a publication that works for blog, not so much as journalism. And you can’t have it both ways.
BTW – how do you feel about the characterization of your photo being “swiped”? Do you feel that is a fair and accurate representation of the events as they occurred at the time? Would that be a word you would use to describe your feelings?
PDXSays, I don’t understand this sentence:
“My point: OurPDX has a publication that works for blog, not so much as journalism. And you can’t have it both ways.”
Regarding “swiped.” I take a photo, share it with the public via Flickr, but then the Mercury uses is so they can make money. I don’t see any of that money. Eventually I get attribution, which is nice and makes me all warm and fuzzy, but overall, yeah, it was swiped and it sucked.
I have to agree with a lot of what PDXSays is saying. There is no argument that the Merc had “violated” some copyrights, but I think the issue now is how OurPdx has handled it.
I think the use of Bold type on this sentence:
“the Portland Mercury has repeatedly infringed on the copyright of two OurPDX authors.”
screams drama in hopes of recognition.
I come here for the comments now.
I’m curious… since you feel that this wasn’t handled correctly… if you were in the same position how would you have handled it?
If it was my photo or video?
I would have handled it privately. I don’t do photography and video to make money. I do it as a hobby. So if I didn’t get a response privately I would probably have dropped it. No monetary loss, only missed opportunity for advertising myself, which I guess I care less about as the years go by. Again, I make videos and photos for the funzies of it, and hope others might enjoy looking at them too.
If I were entirely in your shoes?
Again, private contact. If no response, and I was worried about missed opportunity for money, I would either drop it or look at a lawsuit if I thought it was worth that much time and money.
They guy apologized again, and you still had to make a smug remark about his word choice. Kinda leaves a gross taste in my mouth.
I am done caring now. I think you take amazing photos, and you are one of my favorite PDX photographers, and you probably do deserve money if used for commercial ventures. But you might re-think your methods of recoupment.
I don’t think the Mercury clears any photographs it uses. Seems that if they can find a photo with image search and it looks ok in print or on the blog, they go with it. It’s not an uncommon practice for blogs.
It gets back to issues of reputation and credibility, in my opinion. I’m sure I have images on my personal blog from back in the day that were lifted after doing a Google image search.
But once you want to appeal to a larger audience/readership, you should play by the rules of common courtesy, once those have been identified – even if the rules haven’t yet been made clear or written down in stone; even if there aren’t policemen or enforcers out there.
And if you want to be part of a larger community – and we do – then you need to make sure people don’t feel like you’ve lifted their work without permission. That’s why we make sure that people sharing photos to the OurPDX photo pool know that we may highlight their photo here on our blog (with full credit, of course.)
Finally, Dieselboi’s point about compensation is worthy of further discussion. For example, Aaron’s licensed his photos to me/OurPDX, and I’ve signed an agreement that says we’ll renegotiate compensation should OurPDX turn into a revenue-generating operation. (As I’m fond of repeating ad nauseum, we are still firmly a negative cashflow operation, with all of the cash currently flowing out of my pockets…!)
But I don’t think sites that accept advertising/revenue can presume/assume the use of work that may be easily available with the click of a mouse, yet has the potential to generate revenue for the original creator.
Hell, Aaron may feel strongly about having his work sit alongside ads for Dante’s, for all I know. Or has issues with the editorial content of the Merc, so doesn’t want to help subsidize the operation. (These are both wild-ass examples on my part, FYI.) And that’s his right to say no, for whatever wild-ass reason he wants to.
But if you ask first? You don’t have to apologize later. Good basic rule of thumb to follow — again, in my opinion.
Random context, Rob: Merc has never paid me for any photo of mine they’ve used on Blogtown, despite it being a site plastered with ads and thereby “commercial” and technically a violation of my CC license. But they did pay me for using a photo of mine in print (one they already had used online).
In reality, I probably should have griped about using them on the blog without paying me as well (electronic or ink, either version of the Merc is a commercial enterprise, and so they’ve been violating my license), but I’ve been trying to whittle down the number of things I stress myself over.
Wow.
I think the Merc has responded well in each situation, although they might want to evaluate their training procedures (and this blog post may well encourage them to do so).
PDXsays had one point I was interested in — that mainstream news outlets will often use the words “accused” or “alleged” instead of stating outright that an act has been committed. I looked back over the post to see whether these words should have been used, but IMO, it’s not necessary — this is a first-person account of things that actually happened, and that have been acknowledged by both parties.
As a visual artist, I come at this discussion from a slightly different perspective. I’m not pointing fingers at any particular commenter or specific organization – I’m totally speaking generally here. I think a lot of people think images are a big free for all when it comes to posting them on the internet, that it’s no big deal to post an image that someone else created without attribution because … well, it’s just a picture.
Pictures are not just pictures. Pictures tell stories just like words do, and in many cases pictues tell the story that words can’t. That is why news organizations use pictures in their stories. It draws attention to the story and creates interest.
Taking a good photo is a skill. You have to understand visual language. You have to be at the right place at the right time. You have to compose the shot in a way that communicates what you are trying to say. You have to understand lighting and what all the settings on your camera do. Dieselboi and Aaron are great photographers, one amateur and one professional. They know how to tell a story using pictures.
Let’s say that a publication used someone else’s words in a story, without attribution. We call that plagiarism and writers have been getting their undies in a bunch over it for centuries, and rightly so. The same is true if a photographer publishes someone else’s photo without attribution. It’s clearly theft.
So why is it different if a writer uses someone else’s image to illustrate their story without permission or attribution? There is clear benefit to the writer in using the image, or they wouldn’t bother. Not asking is both sloppy and lazy – and theft of intellectual property.
Copyright is one of the few tools a visual artist has to protect their work, professional or amateur. Photographers have every right to get pissy when someone appropriates their work. What Aaron is doing in his post is educating people about this issue and if he’s a little mad about it – it makes sense to me why he would be. I’m pissed when I don’t get credit for my work too.
This isn’t an issue of OurPDX vs the Portland Mercury. It’s about image usage rights.
One other note: Journalism is an act, not a profession. You don’t need to be paid to have produced a piece of journalism. And, when it comes down to it, most of the general rules of thumb when it come to journalism can be boiled down to: Don’t unnecessarily be a d*ck.
Generally speaking, that’s something that any site — Blogtown or OurPDX — is perfectly capable of grasping and attempting to embody in their respective, if different, missions.
When I think of “journalists blatantly infringing on copyright,” the pub name that comes to mind for me is the Oregonian, not the Mercury. (I’m over it. Really, I am. Actually, no I’m not.)
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