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10/06/2005 08:42:29 AM · #1 |
This was an interesting article that my wife referred me to. When a local newspaper ran a story recently about a confection company, the photographer deliberately copied the style of a photo used in a different paper's story about the same company.
The photos are not identical to be sure, but the idea certainly was. The photographer was fired over this. The Times Dispatch ran an article on the front page of their paper to come clean on this; I really don't believe they did this intentionally. Firing the photographer sounds somewhat harsh for a story like this, but at the same time I understand it. Any thoughts from journalist photographers out there? Is this type of thing common?
Full Story
Message edited by author 2005-10-06 10:50:48. |
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10/06/2005 08:52:33 AM · #2 |
So I can be in big trouble.....?
I think it is totally wrong to fire someone. But I am not a journalist photographer.
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10/06/2005 08:57:48 AM · #3 |
wow....firing might have been harsh....I don't know.
It does seem very tacky to me though....
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10/06/2005 08:59:37 AM · #4 |
Originally posted by rex:
I think it is totally wrong to fire someone. But I am not a journalist photographer. |
Not really. This is a case of visual plagerism. The photographer was warned, and submitted his shot as original work in any case. It also sounds like this shot was done after seeing the December shot. This shot did not fit in with any of the other shots in the story. This is a real issue.
Journalists are held to very high standards of conduct and ethics. Because of the public trust, they have to be.
It's not quite the same here because part of DPC is about learning. In many cases we learn by imitation.
Clara
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10/06/2005 09:02:56 AM · #5 |
Originally posted by rex:
So I can be in big trouble..... |
Not the same context. I just thought it was an interesting article about photojournalism ethics/standards.
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10/06/2005 09:02:59 AM · #6 |
thanks, rich! i had heard that a shooter was dismissed, but missed this story and didn't know why. YIKES!!! on one hand, there is a chain of command that oversaw all aspects of the story that came together, and the accompanying article you referrenced covers that and what is being done.
one the other hand, though, an experienced photojournalist should know better. i'm only guessing at this, but i would imagine that it wasn't simply this incident that brought the dismissal, but instead, that it brought home a situation that needed attention.
it's one thing to be shooting images for stock (i mean, come on, there's gotta be at least 200,000 images of cell phones out there!), but it's a completely different thing to be sent out on an assignment and to decide to shoot a shot almost exactly like one you've seen published before...
imagine how much fun we could have here at dpc if the sc had to enforce this idea of 'visual plaguerism' ;-) |
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10/06/2005 09:06:15 AM · #7 |
From what I can tell in the short article, the photographer knew of a previous image for the same candy company and reproduced it for his companies article. This part was the photographers fault and although I think he did a better image he should have made it much more his own style. I think the photographer is only part of the people that should be punished, not sure about fired though. Where were the fact checkers and editors?
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10/06/2005 09:09:55 AM · #8 |
| Looks like whoever came up with the headline should have been treated likewise ... |
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10/06/2005 09:10:57 AM · #9 |
The titles are also very much the same.
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10/06/2005 09:37:53 AM · #10 |
There is another aspect than just copyright laws. Part of photography (at least some types of photography) is art or originality, creativity or whatever you want to call it. The magazine was paying for an original concept, should they be happy with a copy of someone else's idea?
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10/06/2005 09:56:02 AM · #11 |
Depending on why he was fired, he should look into hiring an attorney for wrongful termination.
There is no way to claim copyright (or patent, or any other "intellectual property" protection) over an idea or concept. (Copyright protects expression and patent law protects inventions, but neither protect ideas.)
Stacking the confectionary company's products up like the other photographer did may not have been an original idea, but there is no legal reason why he couldn't take the photograph he did.
Section 102 of the copyright law, title 17, United States Code, clearly expresses this principle: “In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.”
If it did, photographers would be sueing everybody claiming that your picture of a gerbera daisy or calla lily in front of a black background "infringed" because the idea/concept behind the image was just like theirs.
Just my opinion. IANAL.
Message edited by author 2005-10-06 10:13:48. |
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10/06/2005 10:04:16 AM · #12 |
actually, when the newspaper sends a staff photographer out on an assignment, there is an assumption that the photographer is going to bring back the right stuff. the staff is held to a much higher standard than an intern or a freelancer, and they know it.
if the photographer, while on job, sees an image and basically copies it, that photographer simply isn't doing the job they are being paid to do. you might make a case if they original had never been seen, but that was not the case here--the original was specifically pointed out.
these jobs are hard as hell to get, and the expectations to perform reliably, competently, and creatively are extremely high. if you aren't delivering on all counts, then a performance review would most likely lead to this end result.
edit: like anything else, we can debate some aspects till the cows come home, when in reality, only the photographer and her supervisors know ALL of the details related to the entire situation, including complete work history...
Message edited by author 2005-10-06 10:06:37. |
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10/06/2005 10:48:00 AM · #13 |
Originally posted by EddyG:
Depending on why he was fired, he should look into hiring an attorney for wrongful termination.
There is no way to claim copyright (or patent, or any other "intellectual property" protection) over an idea or concept. (Copyright protects expression and patent law protects inventions, but neither protect ideas.)
Stacking the confectionary company's products up like the other photographer did may not have been an original idea, but there is no legal reason why he couldn't take the photograph he did.
Section 102 of the copyright law, title 17, United States Code, clearly expresses this principle: “In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.”
If it did, photographers would be sueing everybody claiming that your picture of a gerbera daisy or calla lily in front of a black background "infringed" because the idea/concept behind the image was just like theirs.
Just my opinion. IANAL. |
Interesting post. I never really considered the legal aspect of the firing. I understand the motive of the firing, but it is one of those things that does not surprise me and at the same time there is something that feels not quite right about it. Maybe because the blame in this case spreads farther than the photographer.
I think it feels sort of wrong because what the photographer did, and the paper published, feels "tacky" to me more than anything else. Not a high morality issue, just something sort of cheap (i.e., "You can't come up with your own ideas for a photo and title, so you have to mimic others?"). It may not be something illegal, but the paper was right about one thing - it's not very tasteful to do what they did in the publishing community. At least not to me.
I myself am still not sure they needed to actually fire the photgrapher over it so much as he/she clould have benefitted from some good counseling on the standards of the publication they are working for. But there may have been more to the story, as Skip alluded to - repeated transgressions of this or other types of offenses, etc. No way to know for sure. |
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10/06/2005 10:56:41 AM · #14 |
Originally posted by rich:
I myself am still not sure they needed to actually fire the photgrapher over it so much as he/she clould have benefitted from some good counseling on the standards of the publication they are working for. But there may have been more to the story, as Skip alluded to - repeated transgressions of this or other types of offenses, etc. No way to know for sure. |
thanks to some of the higher profile incidences of 'lack of journalistic ethics' (usa today, ny times, la times, etc), most publishing companies are starting to tighten up on things where they may have been slack in the past. and, again, i am willing to bet there's more to this photographer's story than what has been reported.
on the other hand, Virginia is a 'right to work' state, meaning that you can be dismissed without cause... |
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10/06/2005 04:34:11 PM · #15 |
Oh I was being sarcastic above on my earlier post. About I am in trouble. Read Eddy's post....I don't think ideas can be stolen.
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10/06/2005 04:41:39 PM · #16 |
| Can we assume that the copy editor, who used the exact same title, and the photo editor who reviewed and approved the shot for the cover, are still safe in their jobs? Interesting how when heads roll they rarely roll off sholders at or near the top of the food chain. |
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