Do I have rights to my own photos?

[vilakins]

Can someone in the UK advise me on this? There's a Daily Mail article about Blake's 7 which is using photos of the cast which looked strangely familiar to me--and no wonder. The ones of Michael Keating, Gareth Thomas, and David Jackson have been taken from my Star One convention gallery (Gareth's on the second page) without any acknowledgement or payment, and cropped.

Is this standard practice? Is it legal?

I've left a comment on the page asking for an explanation.

Comments

[vandonovan.livejournal.com]

.... wow, how tactless of them. (Although kind of cool in a weird way.) But still. Totally unprofessional. I sure as hell hope they get back to you on that!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I'm going to invoice them. Hell, if they pay me the standard freelance rate, I can live off that for a while. I can hope they'll be fair anyway.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... it says no comments have been submitted.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

They look at them before they publish them.

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

I don't know about the UK, but I'm pretty sure that would be actionable in the US.

I gather people grabbing googled images and using them for web or even print articles, legally or otherwise, is actually pretty common. Somebody snagged a photo off my website for a magazine article once, but he e-mailed me about it and paid me for it. (I was a little miffed that he told me he'd done it and that he'd send me a check, rather than asking first, but it was pretty good money, so I took it.)

If they don't respond to your comment, I'd definitely keep pursuing it, especially as it looks from their terms and conditions (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/dmstandard/article.html?in_article_id=255767&in_page_id=1766) page like they're claiming everything on their pages as their intellectual property.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

If anyone's reading comments at all (which may be unlikely), it's probably just junior keyboard-monkeys scanning for dirty words; comments are very unlikely to get escalated to anyone who can act on it.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

In Austria, it isn't legal, so I'm guessing it isn't in the UK either.

I would write them a letter, stating how much you charge for the use of your photos (whatever you consider to be a reasonable fee).

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I now have links to standard UK freelance rates and I shall charge those.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

As far as I know, it's not legal and you do have rights to your own photos, but it's also rather sloppy journalistic practice for people to assume what's online is fair game. (From what I'm reading, the Berne convention standardizes a lot of copyright stuff internationally, and even photos that aren't marked with a copyright symbol are by default copyrighted by their creators upon creation.)

What's worse, if you look at their terms & conditions (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/dmstandard/article.html?in_article_id=255767&in_page_id=1766), they're asserting they own the copyright to all unattributed content. It looks like either NZ or US copyright law applies (http://ahds.ac.uk/copyrightfaq.htm#faq20), it gets a little murky. If they published them in the print edition, too, that's an additional matter. For the website, I'd contact technical@dailymailonline.co.uk and for the print edition, I'd contact editorial@dailymailonline.co.uk. (Personally, I'd invoice them at standard industry rates and ask them to run a correction attributing the photos, by email and snail mail.)

[kerravonsen]

But what are standard industry rates? How does one find out?

[kerravonsen]

No it isn't legal, you do own the copyright to your photographs, and putting them on the web does not mean you abrogate your rights to them, not unless you explicitly state that you're putting them into the public domain.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'm going to invoice them.

[laura-holt-pi.livejournal.com]

You own the copyright and they have committed an infringement. Papers have been in trouble for that before in the UK.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Is that right? I note that they show copyright for Reuters etc. I wonder where they nicked the other photos from.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I think the other photos are BBC publicity stills.

Wow, though, unbelievable. Another reason to hate the Daily Mail.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I'm betting from the quality that they're nicked from fan sites too. Actually I now think they found them on my site as all my Star One photos are there too.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Definitely they owe you :(

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

And if they pay me what I'm owed, I shall be pleased. I'm sticking them for the standard freelance rates.

[trixieleitz]

Nothing practical to add, but wow, what an arrogant bunch of tossers! I hope you get satisfaction out of them.

Also, happy birthday!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Me too. Greg thinks I will. I'll send an invoice to them tomorrow.

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

I'm disgusted that they did that :0(

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

If they pay me for them, I'll be a lot happier. :-P

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

Gah! I see what you meant earlier about your birthday not being all good! How annoying! I'm glad that (as you've said in your next post) you're going to invoice them.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

If they pay what I'm asking, I'll be happy.

[spacefall.livejournal.com]

Cheeky sods! They'd better pay up, if only for the trauma of having your pictures in a nasty rag like that.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I know! And I wouldn't even have known if snowgrouse hadn't posted about it after several people told her.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

What they've done seems clearly illegal to me - not that I'm an expert on copyright law. The kindest interpretation to put on it would be that some junior member of their staff who didn't know any better (but should have done) was responsible, and that their manager will be down on them like a ton of bricks. I hope that you get get properly recompensed.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Greg looked up NZ copyright law and they're definitely in contravention of it. I'm invoicing them.

[seileach67.livejournal.com]

Good for you going after them! It's inexcusable. Is this paper supposed to be "respectable" or is it one of those tabloids? (*lacks knowledge of UK journalism scene*) Good luck with it in any case. *shakes fist at them on your behalf*

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

Daily Mail = tabloid!

the chisellers

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

The gall of them!
Do charge them double, it may encourage them NOT to print without seeking first in future.
I thought they looked like con photos!

Re: the chisellers

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I'm sure the others are.