Image paid for by The Sun, appearing on other news site (uncredited)

[SRJUK]

Hi All,

 

What are your experiences of this, is it allowed?

 

My image appeared in  The Sun, and was dutifully paid for;

Restaurant where Rishi Sunak once worked offers free lunches to kids over half-term (thesun.co.uk)

 

But also appears here (Note without any image credits)

Restaurant where Rishi Sunak once worked offers free lunches to kids over half-term - Hell Of A Read

 

Is this allowed, or should I report it?

(Apologies I posted this in the other chat group too but can't delete it)

[Ed Rooney]

to delete use the edit. it's those three . . .

 

either way, no harm done.

[AlexH]

I had the same thing recently with an image used in a Guardian article online, which then got picked up by news aggregators and republished in full on some other significant sites, including MSN. I reported it to Alamy who dismissed it as being ok, despite the so called license terms clearly stating one organisation use. To be frank it's been the last straw really in me giving up on there being anything meaningful about the licenses Alamy issue.

 

It's my understanding that when news and content aggregators started on the web they would pull article headlines and maybe a summary with it linking back to the original source. This no longer seems to be the case; they just reproduce the whole article; what I would consider plagiarism.

 

To make it particularly galling MSN actually attributed the rights to my image, which they hadn't licensed, to the Guardian!

 

Alex

 

[RyanU]

There are a lot of fake news websites which skim content from major news sites. The problem is that they won't be held accountable financially for the usage - in all likelihood they're operated in a foreign country (aside from the UK) and will just close shop and open an identical site if their hosting provider gets a complaint. 

 

Edit: To clarify, the usage of your image is technically in breach of copyright, but chasing that complaint would be next to worthless. If the image was on a reputable news website then you'd have a much better chance of recouping fees.

Edited December 8, 2020 by RyanU
update

[AlexH]

45 minutes ago, RyanU said:

There are a lot of fake news websites which skim content from major news sites. The problem is that they won't be held accountable financially for the usage - in all likelihood they're operated in a foreign country (aside from the UK) and will just close shop and open an identical site if their hosting provider gets a complaint. 

 

Edit: To clarify, the usage of your image is technically in breach of copyright, but chasing that complaint would be next to worthless. If the image was on a reputable news website then you'd have a much better chance of recouping fees.

I agree its an annoying reality of online use and there is little point persuing many infringements.

 

In my case the story, and my image, were copied in several sites most of which I didn't bother to flag up to Alamy as I knew it was pointless. However MSN news is not of these fly by night operations, yet Alamy's response was still a shrug of the shoulders.

Edited December 8, 2020 by AlexH
Typo

[RyanU]

1 minute ago, AlexH said:

I agree its an annoying reality of online use and there is little point persuing many infringements.

 

In my case the story, and my image, were copied in several sites most of which I didn't bother to flag up to Alamy as I knew it was pointless. However MSN news is not of these fly by night operations, yet Alamy's response was still a shrug of the shoulders.

I think MSN News is similar to Google News in that the publishers register and allow their platform to promote stories which essentially link right back to their site. In a similar vein, Google Images may well index your photos used on the web without payment or prominent credit, but is this not just something that's come to be an expected standard for search engines nowadays? 

 

As goes for social media usage - if an individual grabs your photos and shares them on facebook, there's little you could do to stop them or charge them for it... You could hardly charge Facebook for the usage. But if that photo is then further picked up by a news network, you'd be well within your rights to chase for payment.

 

[AlexH]

I think that argument holds water when they are highlighting content with a headline/excerpt and linking to the original source. I think the bottom falls out of the bucket when they just republish in full, including images they have not bought the rights to use.

[SRJUK]

I see on the Alamy complaint form; We can’t chase unauthorized uses on your behalf if your image…

• Has been reproduced on another website as a direct copy of an original article which has a license.

But surely by removing all the credits then this is not a 'direct copy' of an article?

 

Not gonna mope about it too long for the measly $5 sale - 

Country: Worldwide
Usage: Editorial
Media: Editorial website
Industry sector: Media, design & publishing
One use in a single editorial article used within the digital versions of a single publication. Digital usage includes archive rights for the lifetime of the article

 

Edited December 8, 2020 by SRJUK

[Doc]

It seems to be widespread and "normal" behaviour. 

 

Doesn't seem to be much Alamy are able to do about it

Kumar

[losdemas]

4 hours ago, RyanU said:

As goes for social media usage - if an individual grabs your photos and shares them on facebook, there's little you could do to stop them or charge them for it...

 

Sorry, but that's just not so. I haven't had any dealings with Facebook - yet. But I have directly - and successfully - invoiced people for unlicensed use of my images on Twitter on several occasions. They were all businesses or public organisations.

 

It's copyright infringement. How you choose to approach that (perhaps dependent upon who has used it and how it has been used) is up to you.

[spacecadet]

5 hours ago, RyanU said:

As goes for social media usage - if an individual grabs your photos and shares them on facebook, there's little you could do to stop them or charge them for it.

+1.

That misapprehension may be costing you money. In the UK at least all that has to happen is for the image to appear on a screen without a licence. That's an infringement.

I haven't had (or rather, found) one on SM yet, but a licensee once rumbled himself by posting my image when he'd only bought a personal licence. He relicensed after Alamy tapped him on the shoulder.

Edited December 8, 2020 by spacecadet

[RyanU]

30 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

+1.

That misapprehension may be costing you money. In the UK at least all that has to happen is for the image to appear on a screen without a licence. That's an infringement.

I haven't had (or rather, found) one on SM yet, but a licensee once rumbled himself by posting my image when he'd only bought a personal licence. He relicensed after Alamy tapped him on the shoulder.

Of course in the case where the image was originally purchased and then shared by the licensee, you'd have much better luck of getting fees from them... But I'm referring more to instances where a John Doe has copied a picture from a news article and shared it across Facebook and other social media... Which has been done to a few photos of mine in the past (not Alamy)...

It's more about being realistic of what battles to pick. I'd love to get money from the sites like the one mentioned in the original post, but the reality is they never paid for it and probably never will.

And of course, as losdemas mentioned, the cases where he has chased for payment on Twitter have been from established businesses or organizations, and they are publicly accountable for their actions... I have chased a major news network successfully for a social media (Twitter and Facebook) use of a video, but the same action to a "Local Newz" Facebook page had me blocked and ridiculed.

Edited December 8, 2020 by RyanU

[The Blinking Eye]

This happened to me too. Three photos published in The Sun and then "borrowed", uncredited, by two scraper sites. People tell me these sites don't care if the content is stolen. At least you got paid by the The Sun though. That's nice. I didn't. Yet (?)

[Colblimp]

23 hours ago, The Blinking Eye said:

This happened to me too. Three photos published in The Sun and then "borrowed", uncredited, by two scraper sites. People tell me these sites don't care if the content is stolen. At least you got paid by the The Sun though. That's nice. I didn't. Yet (?)

Takes a while to get paid. 

[Niels Quist]

26 minutes ago, Colblimp said:

Takes a while to get paid. 

- and peanuts.

[The Blinking Eye]

33 minutes ago, Colblimp said:

Takes a while to get paid. 

 

That will be fun.

[The Blinking Eye]

7 minutes ago, Niels Quist said:

- and peanuts.

 

Thanks for the warning so I don't get my hopes up. 🙂

[The Blinking Eye]

Somebody has expressed confusion over my posts. Or maybe this somebody has expressed confusion over the situation, with which I agree.

 

To clarify:

 

Three of my live news photos got published in The Sun on November 7.

That's exciting.

They also got scraped by two other sites who will never pay.

I have not gotten paid by The Sun yet.

I am told to expect to get paid eventually, but not much.

Not so exciting.

 

 

[Cal]

22 hours ago, The Blinking Eye said:

Somebody has expressed confusion over my posts. Or maybe this somebody has expressed confusion over the situation, with which I agree.

 

To clarify:

 

Three of my live news photos got published in The Sun on November 7.

That's exciting.

They also got scraped by two other sites who will never pay.

I have not gotten paid by The Sun yet.

I am told to expect to get paid eventually, but not much.

Not so exciting.

 

 

 

Has the sale registered yet? The bigger papers don't report instantly but I'd think by now the sale should be reported. It will take a while to get paid, I have usages going back months that haven't cleared, things tend to lag behind. 

[meanderingemu]

12 minutes ago, Cal said:

 

Has the sale registered yet? The bigger papers don't report instantly but I'd think by now the sale should be reported. It will take a while to get paid, I have usages going back months that haven't cleared, things tend to lag behind. 

i have found that most UK news only report in last week of month, and generally following one, so since Kristin's images were used in November, it's more likely they should show up in coming weeks, depending when end of December accounting happens.

[The Blinking Eye]

23 hours ago, Cal said:

 

Has the sale registered yet? The bigger papers don't report instantly but I'd think by now the sale should be reported. It will take a while to get paid, I have usages going back months that haven't cleared, things tend to lag behind. 

 

No, it hasn't registered. I'm used to the very slow Alamy payments clearing, but there's no evidence of these sales. I have screenshots of the Google search where they appear and from the scraper sites, but could never get to the bottom of the Sun blog to actually see them there.

[Cal]

Just now, The Blinking Eye said:

 

No, it hasn't registered. I'm used to the very slow Alamy payments clearing, but there's no evidence of these sales. I have screenshots of the Google search where they appear and from the scraper sites, but could never get to the bottom of the Sun blog to actually see them there.

 

That's a shame, it would have been a useful tear sheet too. Whenever I find one of my images used online I immediately PDF it for this reason. Hope it comes through soon for you.

[The Blinking Eye]

Just now, Cal said:

 

That's a shame, it would have been a useful tear sheet too. Whenever I find one of my images used online I immediately PDF it for this reason. Hope it comes through soon for you.

 

I'm actually thankful for the scraper sites. Otherwise I wouldn't have known which photos got published.

[Cal]

7 minutes ago, The Blinking Eye said:

 

I'm actually thankful for the scraper sites. Otherwise I wouldn't have known which photos got published.

 

I found one of mine on a site called Muckrack. Looking for your photos is certainly an interesting exercise in finding strange parts of the internet.

[The Blinking Eye]

2 hours ago, Cal said:

 

I found one of mine on a site called Muckrack. Looking for your photos is certainly an interesting exercise in finding strange parts of the internet.

 

Yeah, I never knew about these things before.