Being specific- and the definition of “public relations use”

I don’t know if I have mentioned it before, but a contract can’t conceivably have all of the possible terms available in the universe (although some try). So if a term is missing from a contract, or if it is ambiguous, the court will try to fill in the blanks. In other words, the court will interpret any part of your contract that is unclear. For that reason, you should be clear about the important parts- like usage.

In my research, I came upon a  case which is a good example of how clear usage terms can make all the difference in a lawsuit. The case is Steve Altman Photography v. United States, 18 Cl. Ct. 267 (Cl. Ct. 1989)

Basically what happened was that the photographer and his client, a government agency, had an ongoing relationship and a subsequent dispute over a couple of different uses. Two parts of the case interested me. The photographer claimed that the agency violated his copyright twice, once by releasing an image to a magazine and again by using a (separate) photo in an annual report. Both allegations combine to make a good lesson.

“PR Use” and Release to a Magazine

I simply hate pages with lots of text and no photos. So here. Enjoy. © 2008 Alicia Wagner Calzada

For the first allegation, the photographer had granted “public relations use” for an assignment. The agency gave a copy of a photo from the assignment to a magazine. Was the copyright violated?

First, the court, without more specific indications of the intentions of the parties (at the time of the contract), interpreted “public relations” based on the dictionary definition:

“”Public relations” refers to the “business of inducing the public to have understanding for and goodwill toward an . . . . institution.” Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, 932 (1975).” Id.

Second, because the photographer came up with the terms, the court construed the contract most favorably to the other party- basically, as the person drafting the terms, you have a responsibility to be clear, and you don’t get to benefit from being vague. Thus the court found that releasing the photos to the magazine fell under “public relations” use.

More Specific Usage Terms- “1982 annual report”

In the same case the same photographer had also licensed some photos for an annual report, specifically “to be used in 1982 annual report and for P.R. release.“

Because these terms were more specific, when the agency use the images in the annual report for a different year (1983), the court ruled that there was a copyright infringement.

So you see how being specific made all of the difference. Imagine if the client had used one of the photos from the first instance in an annual report. The court could have used the second contract as proof that annual report use was not included in public relations use. Or it could have decided that the absence of a specific limitation meant that there was no limitation.

Moral of the story, be specific, lest someone else is left to read your mind. After all, if you end up having a judge interpret your contract, you have lost the client.

If you use a general license, list the possible uses. If you need help filling in the blanks, a great resource is PLUS (Picture Licensing Universal System). They have an awesome feature called the “License Generator” which you can use to fill in the usage section of your contract. Try It!

Happy Shooting.

-A

Newark Cameraman assaulted by police is suing.

In general, I don’t do cartwheels when I hear about lawsuits. But this one makes me happy. A TV photographer in New Jersey has filed a lawsuit against a police officer who arrested him while the photographer was filming a peaceful demonstration. Apparently the only thing violent about this demonstration was the officer’s clash with the photographer.

This video shows the original event. Can you say “settle now.”

Dear Police of America: Stop violating the constitutional rights of journalists. We are journalists and we will get really good evidence.

Shepard Fairey Drama Twist

Sometimes a lawsuit is just a lawsuit.

But sometimes it is a soap opera. Sometimes, a lawsuit is an attempt to shape the laws, an attempt to get the public to wake up and take sides. And sometimes there is a cliff hanging twist and turn every time you think it is safe to turn off the internet. Fairey v. Associated Press, is all of the above, and the case has all of the elements of a good drama (except sex): politics, money, theft, lies, and art.

In the latest twist, Fairey has admitted that he falsified evidence and attempted to destroy other evidence. AP has also issued a statement, stating that the Fairey’s lawyers are attempting to withdraw from representation of Fairey. To them, I say: “what did you expect from a thief.”

Bad news for the copyleft- their “poster-child” for fair use has almost certainly ruined his case. There is nothing like lying to the court and violating discovery to remove all sympathy a judge might have for your case. Furthermore, he could be sanctioned to the point that he looses his primary defense. No matter what happens, he looks very guilty.

On Another Note:

When researching this news, I noticed an interesting article from the EFF that explains how as a part of the countersuit, the AP is also making a claim under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act for stripping the metadata from the photograph (see item 137 and 182 of the counterclaim document). I was not aware of this, but this will be another interesting element of the case to follow closely if this does not settle. Removing metadata is a violation of the DMCA. And yet nearly every newspaper website in America removes metadata from photos that it publishes. I have long criticized this practice- it creates orphans. But if AP wins on the issue of removing the metadata, media lawyers will have to wake up about the practices of news organizations relating to preserving metadata.

On Yet Another Note:

As I mentioned, this case has many twists and turns. Few legal posts I have seen evaluate the Mannie Garcia claim that he is the rightful copyright holder of the photograph. Here is one great article about it, though.

I have chart on work for hire that I created earlier this year. Without knowing more facts about Garcia and his arrangement with AP, it is hard to work through it, but you might find it useful.

Interesting Related Documents:

Fairey’s Initial Complaint

AP’s Answer and Countersuit

Fairey’s motion to amend the claim (with the details about Shepard Fairey’s change in story)

Mannie Garcia’s Motion for intervention.

More documents from the case.

It’s photo week at the Supreme Court of the United States

Photographers should be paying attention to the Supreme Court this week…

Tasini continued…

Oral arguments were heard today in Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick. This case is connected to our old friend Tasini v. New York Times, which some say started the whole rights grabbing trends of the modern day newspaper contract. While this case won’t really have as much of an impact on photographers, it is interesting because of the connection. It involves the authority of the court over copyright cases and settlements when the rights holders haven’t registered their copyright. It also involves an enormous class of journalists. Here is a summary of the oral arguments (note to self: research why people keep hyphenating “freelancer”) and here is a transcript of the oral arguments.

If the court rules that a federal court cannot approve a settlement involving rights-holders who have not registered, it seems inevitable that this will affect the Google Books settlement.

The Dog-fight Video Case

In another case that is important to photographers, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday about whether or not a law that bans visual depictions of cruelty to animals is a violation of the First Amendment.

U.S. v. Stevens is the first case ever to be prosecuted under a federal law that bans any “depiction of animal cruelty” if such cruelty is illegal in the place where the depiction is created, sold or possessed.

It has been many years since the Court found that the government interest in preventing child pornography was so great that it overrode any First Amendment rights of the child pornographer, a rather appropriate finding. By making the expressive act illegal, the motive for the abuse is diminished. Child pornography involves abuse of a child and the photography itself is abusive. The law is clearly narrowly tailored and serves a compelling government interest.

This law is not so well orchestrated. For example, the defedant, Stevens, was not involved in any animal abuse, he merely edited together footage that he obtained from others.

While well intentioned (many attacks on the First Amendment are), I think this law is certain to be struck down. First of all, I don’t believe that our government truly has a compelling interest in preventing cruelty to animals. If it did, much of the way our nation produces meat would be illegal (yes, I am a vegetarian). Second, the law is in no way narrowly tailored. There are many possibilities of perfectly legal activity that could get a person caught up in this law. And there are loopholes that would make illegal a video or photograph of something that was legal where it occurred (say bullfighting in Spain). I once photographed a ritual sacrifice of a sea turtle in a Fijian village. It was gross. It was brutal and cruel. But it was important to document. Those pictures could get me in trouble with the feds under this law.

If you don’t believe me, just take a look at the list of hypotheticals the justices posed to the attorneys in this case. The article in the New York Times says it all.

The transcript, full of hypotheticals, is here.

An article about the NPPA signing an amicus brief urging the court to hold the law unconstitutional is here.

One of my favorite things to listen to is a Nina Totenberg report on Supreme Court arguments. Her review of this weeks oral arguments is available here.

Wedding photography disaster- protect yourself

This story about a wedding photographer in England who was sued for providing “shoddy” photography holds a few lessons, for both photographers and brides to be. For brides, do your homework and get a decent, and professional photographer. These photos, and the video as well, make me wonder if the couple looked at any examples of the photographer’s work before they hired him. Was this just a bad day? I can’t imagine.

For photographers, the lesson is that an important element of your contract is a determination of what happens if something goes wrong.  Disasters happen. Car accidents and family emergencies happen. Even good equipment, on rare occasion, fails. My contract, regardless of the client, has a limitation of liability that says if something does go wrong, my liability is only the amount paid to me. I guarantee my work, but I am not willing to foot the bill for a second wedding if someone doesn’t like my style. To have such a guarantee would force me to raise my prices significantly.

This is important, not because I expect my client to be unhappy- on the contrary, I have very happy clients. But photography is subjective. For example, the judge in the above article found that the photography was bad based in part on the fact that some heads were cut off, and some horizons were crooked. Some photos were out of focus. From a stylistic perspective, you might have award-winning images with heads cut off, crooked horizons and soft focus.

This brings up another point. I don’t know whether the photographer in the above case gave all his images to the bride, or only a selection, but as a rule, I ALWAYS provided only an edited selection. I learned the hard way to never provide my entire take to someone who is not a photography professional. Doing so is an invitation to be judged by your outtakes, which by definition, stink.

You could certainly take my worst outtakes from any event I have photographed, haul me before a judge, and get a judgment that I am a bad photographer. But that will never happen, because my job is not to make every frame I shoot perfect. My job is to to provide a selection of wonderful, unique images. That is what the client wants, and that is what the client gets.

Copyright Petition to Obama

The Copyright Alliance, a group that promotes copyrights (good guess, right), has launched a campaign to collect petition signatures asking the Obama Administration to promote policies that respect and advance copyrights. It does not ask for anything specific, so there is little room for excuse or debate on this one. Step up.

http://www.copyrightalliance.org/letter

It takes about 20 seconds.

SEC credential restrictions improved

The SEC has once again changed its credentialing policies for this season. This time it appears to be a much better change. According to the SEC, the new policy has “additional flexibility in internet news coverage, uses of photographic images, access to video images for television newscasts and special shows and clarification in the provisions of blogging”

The new policy can be found at this link:

http://www.secsports.com/doc_lib/0910_media_credential_policy.pdf

There is also a good article on editor and publisher website, clarifying the restrictions that were lifted:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004007242

Finally, it is worth reading this general article by the Associated Press Sports Editors group: “Here’s what you need to know about credential issues“

Also worth reading for freelance photographers is this post by John Harrington about the lesson that photographers can learn from the AP, who refused to give up its rights. The irony is painful. And yes, the rights are clearly valuable.

Coaliation against Google Books settlement.

Thanks Robert House for this link to an article about the growing coalition arguing against the Google Books settlement.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/coalition-lays-out-arguments-against-google-books-settlement/

Cameras going into Rochester court

Although cameras in the court has been an ongoing battle in New York state, there has been at least one local victory recently in Rochester. Read the story here. Go Rochester. And thanks for the tip Max.

To read more on the history of cameras in the court and New York State, read this 2005 story by Mickey Osterreicher, the NPPA attorney:

“Don’t shoot me! (while I’m in handcuffs)”

A couple of weeks ago, a defendent in Long Island, NY, actually had the nerve to ask a federal judge to bar the media from publishing photographs of him in handcuffs. The defendant, former legislatorRoger Corbin, was arrested on federal charges of tax evasion.

Among the things that Corbin asked for was an end to the “perp walk,” specifically:

(A) permanently enjoining, restraining, and stopping Newsday, News 12 and the United States Government from issuing press releases, mug shots or “perp walk” photos, videos or images of the defendant in handcuffs; and

(B) permanently enjoining the United States Government from conducting “perp walks” or issuing other information of the defendant aside from pedigree information and except as directed by the Court;

Needless to say, the motion to prevent perp walks, for either Corbin, or other defendants, was denied, as was the motion to stop publication of the images of Corbin in handcuffs. But as is the case with most rulings, the judge cannot just say “no.” He has to explain it.  The case goes through all of the motions of why, and for that reason it is interesting reading to anyone who wants to know the law behind perp walks or behind judicial restraint and the push-pull of fair trial vs. free press.

I thought it was interesting that the judge found the perp walk issue moot because it had already happened. Federal courts can only rule on “cases in controversy,” in other words, if there was about to be a perp walk, there would be a controversy, but since the time had passed, there was no “justiciable” issue. I was surprised by this ruling, even though the judge had good precedent. There are exceptions to this rule when the issue is something that will be repeated, and it ordinarily begins and ends before a case can reasonably be brought. This was the reasoning behind some desegregation cases, when the child had already graduated.

Also interesting to me, was that in Corbin’s efforts to stop the police from releasing information and photos to the media, the judge ruled that the media had rights because as the recipients to the information, their First Amendment rights were invoked. In other words, when it comes to restricting information, both the person communicating the information AND the recipient have first amendment rights. To quote a Supreme Court case, “W]here  [*29] a willing speaker exists, … the protection afforded is to the communication, to its source and its recipients both.” (case can be found at 425 U.S. 748). The fact that the recipient has as much right to recieve the communication as the speaker has to give it is not something that I was aware of. It is definitely useful.

The judge’s ruling on the motions can be found at United States v. Corbin, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 46241 (E.D.N.Y. June 1, 2009).