image use ANDY POTTS


genuine mistake, it was nine years ago, no money was made from it and the person who posted the picture was no longer alive. After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, we managed to whittle the fee down. It took four months to get it sorted.” Campbell-Barr believes that the action taken by the picture agency amounted to bullying and that the sum demanded was out of proportion to the website it appeared on and the person who initially used it. She also feels there should be a time limit attached to cash demands and a more measured approach taken by picture agencies – sentiments echoed by many others. Georgia Lewis is a freelance journalist and editor. She was editing a travel trade magazine when an email arrived from Schillings, claiming that a photo featured in an advertorial produced in partnership with a tourism board, which had supplied the image, had been used without permission. “I kept getting the same email demanding payment and I


kept giving the same explanation, informing them to contact the tourism board about image use. In the meantime, we removed the promotion from our website, but there wasn’t much we could do about the printed copies of the magazine. I tried to contact the tourism board myself to let them know what was going on and suggest they be more diligent with images they supply to the media, but my emails went unanswered and phone calls were unreturned.” Lewis says that the law firm’s actions “felt like harassment”


after “the saga went on for weeks”. Andrew Draper is editor of BEST (Batteries and Energy Storage Technology). He says: “A picture agency got in touch saying that you have got our picture on your website, you haven’t got a licence and you owe us something like £800. It was put on the website before my time so I handed it over to my managing director, who lost a lot of sleep over it.” Draper adds that, while there have only been two emails of this type, “the question that immediately comes to mind is, how many more of these pictures are there? I did feel that [the sums] they were asking for were a lot of money. There was a certain amount for a penalty and interest, and it all added up.” Meanwhile, a former PA employee who wishes to remain


anonymous was surprised to learn that big picture agencies such as PA are rigorously pursuing individuals and organisations for historic image use. She says: “At one point when I was at PA, we were told that, because of AI, there is now this software that scrapes the internet looking for instances [of photos with rights attached]. It sounds like what these agencies are doing. It’s weird because we were told that we’ve got to be careful at PA because this could happen to us. But no one told us that PA was also doing it.”


What is the best course of action? When asked about image use, a spokesperson for PA Media and Alamy told The Journalist: “Platforms such as Alamy are merely custodians of the content, and the copyright holders who submit to our platform expect us to protect their works in accordance with copyright law.” The spokesperson also said that “we are happy to negotiate fees on a case-by-case basis depending on the end use and ensure any fees charged are appropriate” and that at Alamy “we don’t have a time limit as such – we will, however, only pursue suspected infringements if the images are on the


“


Alamy platform or we have permission to act on behalf of the copyright holder”. It took weeks for me to prove that I had permission to use a


A picture agency got in touch saying you owe us something like £800. I felt the sums asked for were a lot


single image. In the case of the other photograph, after I put forward my case, the agency agreed to accept smaller sum. So, what lessons have been learned? Chapman says: “The only safe way to use images is to have clear written permission from the copyright owner or their licensee (e.g. an agency), with a clear paper trail and a good content management system to keep track of how each image can be used.”


I will be following Chapman’s advice. But I hope that


agencies will rethink their heavy-handed approach to individuals and organisations which have acted in good faith. Even if the agencies’ actions are lawful, surely it’s not good business practice to put the fear of God into people?


theJournalist | 19


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