Local newspaper uses pictures without permission

[Youhong]

The objective of the thread is to let fellow photographers know the unethical acts of a media.

Summary:
A local newspaper used pictures posted on a student portal website for current events reporting. Although credits had been given, the journalist did not seek for permission from the student portal or the photographer. It was only the pictures were published on the front page of the papers then the chief editor of the portal and the photographer realised that the journalist had taken the pictures without permission. The newspaper rejected the request to make a public apology and to give an explaination to their actions.

Dear forumers and fellow photographers, what do you think of this issue?

 

[skopio]

isn't this a clear breach of IP rights? no?

 

[mattlock]

The objective of the thread is to let fellow photographers know the unethical acts of a media.

Summary:
A local newspaper used pictures posted on a student portal website for current events reporting. Although credits had been given, the journalist did not seek for permission from the student portal or the photographer. It was only the pictures were published on the front page of the papers then the chief editor of the portal and the photographer realised that the journalist had taken the pictures without permission. The newspaper rejected the request to make a public apology and to give an explaination to their actions.

Dear forumers and fellow photographers, what do you think of this issue?

it happened before, if you do a search on my history...
I made a demand for a public apology and was rejected too.
You can try to raise awareness of the occurance through the use of the internet and forums, and you can try contacting the rival media company to see if they want to bite on something slightly scandalous

 

[lsisaxon]

it happened before, if you do a search on my history...
I made a demand for a public apology and was rejected too.
You can try to raise awareness of the occurance through the use of the internet and forums, and you can try contacting the rival media company to see if they want to bite on something slightly scandalous

Rival media? Where?

 

[geeteethree]

in singapore there is no rival media
all government owned yes??

 

[NoMoney]

Local Newspaper rival... Is it Today vs SPH? That's the only idea I have in mind.

Personally I feel that this is a bad practice. At least the newspaper company should verbally ask the photographer.

 

[wildstallion]

If your serious just take them to court. Seems like a clear breach of intellectual property rights.

 

[k3nshinx]

i thought your case happened long ago? wasnt it settled..sheesh..

 

[astroboy]

Today was formerly owned by Mediacorp. Now Mediacorp is owned by SPH. In fact I can't think of any mainstream media in S'pore that isn't owned by SPH.

Perhaps someone should start thinking about starting an alternative media online...

Local Newspaper rival... Is it Today vs SPH? That's the only idea I have in mind.

Personally I feel that this is a bad practice. At least the newspaper company should verbally ask the photographer.

 

[peapilot]

Which media was it? Any specific details?
It's just plain laziness. Somebody failed to do his job, be it fact checking or clearing rights.

 

[shooter]

Which photo? Which newspaper? :sweat:

 

[ortega]

Today was formerly owned by Mediacorp. Now Mediacorp is owned by SPH. In fact I can't think of any mainstream media in S'pore that isn't owned by SPH.

Perhaps someone should start thinking about starting an alternative media online...

mediacorp is owned by SPH? that's new

 

[astroboy]

Yes, it was the govt's idea to merge the 2 companies for easier "control"...

mediacorp is owned by SPH? that's new

 

[Static]

The objective of the thread is to let fellow photographers know the unethical acts of a media.

Summary:
A local newspaper used pictures posted on a student portal website for current events reporting. Although credits had been given, the journalist did not seek for permission from the student portal or the photographer. It was only the pictures were published on the front page of the papers then the chief editor of the portal and the photographer realised that the journalist had taken the pictures without permission. The newspaper rejected the request to make a public apology and to give an explaination to their actions.

Dear forumers and fellow photographers, what do you think of this issue?

LL... What to do, this had happened?





Nothing you can do...

Worse... you can perform an ultimate self pawning move...

Post on Stomp

sph owns stomp stoopid...

 

[Youhong]

All right... Here's the incident in more detail...

26 Jan
The Powered Racing Unit organized a car drifting show at one of the clubs. The show had attracted more than a thousand of people attending the show. Photographer, Ah Zhi, was there for the event and he covers the event mainly for 3 groups of people, namely the organizer, whosthere.sg – official clubbing media and FunnyCars.com – Official Car Show media. The drifters, Mr Charlie, Mr Romeo, Mr Quebec and Mr Mike put up a fantastic show for the crowd.

27 Jan
Ah Zhi posted a total of 100 shots of the events including the drifters in action, a live band performance, and a dance performance as well as the general crowd shots on whosthere.sg. Out of the 100 shots, 20 shots were pictures of the drifters. It was known to Ah Zhi that Mr Quebec downloaded the picture from whosthere.sg.

28 Jan
Ah Zhi submitted the pictures to FunnyCars.com, Mr Romeo and Mr Charlie downloaded from FunnyCars.com and used the pictures on their blog. Both Mr Romeo and Mr Charlie also posted some of their self-taken shots in their respective blogs.

29 Jan
Mr Bravo, supposedly to be close friends of the car owners rose the alarm that pictures are being leeched all over the net. Ah Zhi’s first prime suspect was the Hard Metal Zone forum since it had once leeched Ah Zhi’s pictures before. Ah Zhi engaged in a major quarrel with the forumers and the forumers challenged Ah Zhi and FunnyCars.com to take legal actions against them. Pictures leeched to the Hard Metal Zone where all taken from FunnyCars.com because the watermarks were still intact. Hence, FunnyCars.com and Ah Zhi were blamed to have caused the pictures to be distributed and circulated.

30 Jan
Mr Charlie emailed FunnyCars.com to request the pictures to be removed. However, it was answered by someone who did not know the situation. Hence, Mr Charlie contacted Ah Zhi directly to ask him to help remove all pictures. Ah Zhi immediately approached FunnyCars.com chief editor to remove the pictures from the site to break all hotlinks and hyperlinks. Ah Zhi also informed the site admin of whosthere.sg to remove the pictures.

31 Jan
The Sierra Mike Daily News had featured the pictures on their newspaper frontpage. The report article put credits to Ah Zhi and FunnyCars.com for the pictures. However, neither Ah Zhi nor FunnyCars.com has granted any form of permission for the use of the pictures. Moreover, the news also made up and spiced up the story by the journalist herself based on the pictures she sees on FunnyCars.com. The journalist also knew about Ah Zhi’s unhappiness of forumers of the Hard Metal Zone using his pictures, yet, the journalist continued to use despite already knowing the fact. Also, the journalist also report about Ah Zhi’s unhappiness of forumers using his pictures in her own article (last 2 para). Ah Zhi immediately sent a complain email to the journalist.

Although Sierra Mike Daily News have mosaic the licence plates of the drifters, it is not difficult to tell who the drifters are. As such, the drifters are greatly affected in terms of their reputation.

 

[Youhong]

1 Feb
The journalist replied that she will be running an apology in the papers about the unauthorized use of pictures. Ah Zhi requested that the journalist to also apologize to the drifters whose reputations is affected due to the report because of the wrongfully reported article.

2 Feb
Nothing in the apology mentioned about the leeching of pictures. The journalist only corrected her first reporting. Apparently, the Project Director of the event did contact the journalist to request for a clarification. Ah Zhi emailed the journalist and continued to pursue for the apology to FunnyCars.com and himself because the journalist did not clarified that she used the pictures without the knowledge and permission from Ah Zhi and FunnyCars.com

3 Feb
Ah Zhi continued to send multiple reminders on the following dates because the journalist did not reply
- 4 Feb
- 7 Feb
- 11 Feb

12 Feb
The journalist finally replied. In her reply, there was a total change in tone. Ah Zhi sees this as another challenge and he refers the journalist to FunnyCars.com’s chief editor. The chief editor replied the journalist that he had left Ah Zhi to handle the case. Ah Zhi was expecting the journalist to get back to him, however the journalist did not.

17 Feb
Ah Zhi did not receive any email from the journalist and he sent an email to the journalist to check what her follow up actions and intentions are.

18 Feb
The journalist referred Ah Zhi to Mr Delta, Sierra Mike Daily News’ legal department. Ah Zhi immediately emailed Mr Delta with all the correspondences on the issue.

To Ah Zhi’s surprise, he had to send reminder emails to Mr Delta on the following dates before he can even get a reply
- 20 Feb
- 22 Feb

22 Feb
Mr Delta finally replied to Ah Zhi and proposed for a meeting with Ah Zhi and FunnyCars.com representative “to explore the possibility of an amicable solution for this matter.” After much exchanging of emails with the journalist, the meeting is arranged to be on 25 Feb with the presence of Mr Delta from the legal department and her editor of Sierra Mike Daily News. However, the journalist herself will be absent because she will be overseas till 7 Mar. Ah Zhi thought it is unreasonable and felt that the journalist should be involved directly to the meeting. Ah Zhi replied to request for a re-schedule of the date for the meeting. However, another meeting seemed too difficult to be arranged, hence Ah Zhi compromised to the meeting on the 25 Feb.

25 Feb
Ah Zhi specially made trip down to the News Centre. Present were Mr Delta, the representative from the legal department and Mr Lima, the Deputy Local News Editor of Sierra Mike Daily News. Ah Zhi presented the sequence of events and his stand to Mr Delta and Mr Lima. Ah Zhi questioned Mr Delta why he had to send reminder emails to get replies and Mr Delta explained that they require approximately 3 working days to reply to an email. Ah Zhi was amazed by the efficiency of a news person.

As expected by Ah Zhi, Mr Delta told Ah Zhi that the media can use the pictures for reporting and he quoted the following to Ah Zhi:

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Copyright Act Chapter 63
Fair dealing for purpose of reporting current events
37. A fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, or with an adaptation of a literary, dramatic or musical work, shall not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the work if it is for the purpose of, or is associated with, the reporting of current events —
(a) in a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical and a sufficient acknowledgment of the work is made; or
(b) by means of broadcasting or a cable programme service or in a cinematograph film.
[Aust. 1968, s. 42 (1)]

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Ah Zhi replied that the nothing in that part exonerates any media(s) from the responsibilities to inform and to seek permission from the person holding the copyright. In addition, it does not relief the media from having to comply with the terms and conditions stated by the source/person holding the copyrights. Mr Delta quieted down.

Mr Lima offered two solutions to Ah Zhi.
1) To publish a clarification on the papers that Ah Zhi and FunnyCars.com did not supply the pictures to the press.
2) To have a personal interview with Ah Zhi and to publish his works.

Ah Zhi stopped Mr Lima before he could even finished explaining the second solution because Ah Zhi saw this as a solution to simply brush off Ah Zhi. Ah Zhi choose the first solution and requested that the papers to publish the clarification and apology. Also, he requested that the journalist involved should also get back to him with an explanation. Mr Lima replied that there is no need for Ah Zhi to meet the journalist. He also said “I can only say one thing – I think the journalist is stupid. She is new and was taught to report everything he knows.” However, Ah Zhi began to wonder if Mr Lima knew that nothing in the journalist’s report was true (except the last 2 paragraphs) and that the rest were his own deduction from the pictures she obtained from FunnyCars.com.

Mr Delta emailed Ah Zhi the expected clarification to be published on the Sierra Mike Daily News as a full and final address of the matter. “Clarification - The pictures in the headline by Sierra Mike Daily News on the 31 Jan were not provided by Ah Zhi and/or FunnyCars.com.” Ah Zhi replied, “I shall accept the clarification which will be made on the 27 Feb 2008 Sierra Mike Daily News frontpage and I shall not continue to pursue Sierra Mike Daily News - only if Sierra Mike Daily News has fulfilled the clarification and public apology. I would still request the journalist involved to give me an explanation to his actions.” Ah Zhi expected an apology on the front page and an explanation in addition to the clarification as suggested because Ah Zhi sees that the Sierra Mike Daily News had caused “front page damage” to him and he expected something of equivalent.

The disagreement dragged on until 27 Feb and no clarification were made by Sierra Mike Daily News

26 Feb
Ah Zhi continued to check on Sierra Mike Daily News and continued to see the journalist’s reporting. Ah Zhi suspect that the journalist is telling a lie. There were also reporting from the journalist being published on Sierra Mike Daily News on other dates. Ah Zhi was seriously in doubt with the integrity of the journalist.

28 Feb
The journalist involved emailed Ah Zhi with his personal email account saying that he would like to send Ah Zhi an apology, but mentioned that Mr Delta thought it will not help. Ah Zhi replied.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Thanks for replying. I am glad that you emailed me despite Mr Delta’s personal opinion that it will not help. However, I would prefer you to use your official Sierra Mike Daily News email account to communicate with me.

The reason I cannot allow the matter to rest is because I have not receive any apology and explanation from you. In fact, the issue would have long been cleared if you have keep to your words in your very first email you replied to me.

"Date: 1 Feb Hi, I'm very sorry for the mistake. We will be running an apology in tomorrow's paper. Please call me at 12345678 or our hotline at 91234567 if you wish to make any other clarifications."

The issue began to drag on when I had to send multiple emails and reminders to request for an explanation when the above was not fulfilled and more complex when your editor and the legal department have to step in.

I shall let the matter rest and I shall not continue to pursue this matter once the following requests have been fulfilled.

1) Public clarification and apology on Sierra Mike Daily News. (Please kindly allow me to know when and where the clarification is intended to be published.)
3) A personal (need not be public) email to me with formal apology and explanation of this whole issue.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ah Zhi did not get any reply from the journalist or any parties from Sierra Mike Daily News. Finally, after approximately one month of reminders, Ah Zhi gives the final reminder. Ah Zhi also forwarded the emails to other editors of the Sierra Mike Daily News.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I am sending this email again because I did not receive any reply from you since my last email on

- Date: 28 Feb
- Date: 10 Mar
- Date: 17 Mar
- Date: 24 Mar
- Date: 4 Apr

This shall be the last gentle reminder I'm sending you. I request you to reply me within 3 days before I start to make it a demand. In addition, I shall not be responsible of disclosing all our correspondences to anyone or the public to take more drastic actions to deal with this issue.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

9 Apr
One of the editor replied that “they had, in all good faith, offered to publish a clarification, but Ah Zhi had repeatedly turned it down and insisted on including terms unreasonable and unacceptable to them. As their offer to publish the clarification has lapsed, they will not engage in further discourse on this matter.”

Ah Zhi wondered which part of his requests are considered as unreasonable and he replied that he request an apology and since the damage was a frontpage one, he expected something equivalent and also an explanation from the journalist involved in this matter. However, Ah Zhi did not receive any reply.

 

[madmacs]

so complicated...i gather that you are ah zhi and the newspaper is sin min daily news? :think:

 

[NoMoney]

Perhaps ah zhi can consult the FOC legal services (lawyer only give his advice) since he is still a student.

I had once saw the banner at a Community Centre quite long ago, but just cannot recall which CC is that.

Good luck to Ah Zhi

 

[D60D60]

Yes, it was the govt's idea to merge the 2 companies for easier "control"...

mediacorp is not owned by sph, neither sph is not owned by mediacorp..........

both are 2 separate companies owned by the government.

get the facts right.

i was from the media for 15 years.....

 

[Lmodel]

If all else fails, approach Dr. Chee for help.

Perhaps he can help raise the issues on IP rights, since this aspect is seriously lagging behind.

STOMP it as well. Use the public media on the local media.