My Photo Is Unauthorized Used For A Political Campaign

This morning I received a local government election campaigning

booklet and I was shocked to see one my photo is used in the booklet.

The photo also is on the front page of the the campaigning web site. I

never have a contact in regarding of the photo usage.

 

I haven't copy right the photo yet. Anything I can/shall do at this

point?

 

Thanks.

Call a lawyer.

<p>Here is a screenshot of the front page of the web site. Ironically, there is a statement: "All Rights Reserved" on the bottom of the page.

 

<p><img src="http://pu-gong-ying.info/html/malcolmbrodie.jpg"/>

So? Like was said, call a lawyer. Posting a pic of the site doesn't change the situation relative to our ability to do anything about it.

The image was copyrighted the moment you clicked the shutter. Find the people responsible and sue their asses back to the stoneage. GET A LAWYER!!!

I assume that you previously did work for this campaign. You might want to take the offensive route, but it might be to your advantage to be nice, remind them that it's a copyrighted image, and then ask how long they intend to use the image so that you can discuss. that way, the ball is in their court and you still are very reasonable with them.

 

if you do this nicely, you might get more jobs in the future. immediately going to a lawyer might not cultivate good feelings if you are looking for future work with this campaign.

It depends on your contract (if any) and what country and state or province you are in. Contact a Lawyer.

As you haven't explained how the campaign got ahold of your image to begin with, I'm unclear as to whether we've been provided with all the relevant facts. That having been said, before you spend a bunch of money you won't recoup on legal fees, why don't you figure out a reasonable usage fee for the image, contact the campaign's media staff and ask the campaign to pay you for the use of the image.

Thanks for all responses, especially, Conrad and Eric's constructive suggestions.

 

When I saw the campaign brochure, I was wondering the same question: how they get the image since I don't have any connection with the campaign. After the culture event where I took the photos, I uploaded some of the photo images to a temporary page of my web site, and let the event coordinator know the page and told her feeling free to use them if they wanted to report the event in a local newspaper. I called her this morning to find out a clue of the situation because she is the only city employee whom I had shown the photos to. She said that she didn't know the image has been used for the political campaign and she only passed the photos to the mayor at the time.

 

Now, before I approach the campaign organization, I need to figure out a reasonable usage fee. Any reference?

Vernon-- There is a section in the copyright code which allows the photographer to copyright the image even after the infraction has occurred. If you register the copyright of the image immediately, then your chances for getting additional monies for the infraction will increase. This will give you far greater leverage in any negotiations you get into with the politician's office, as the potential penalties increase manyfold, and there's not much of any way they can get out of them except by negotiating a payment with you.

 

That being said, when you notified the politician's office that the photos were on your website, you should have stated in writing that the photos would be for news use only with full credit given. Now it's your word against hers as to what was said, unless you have copies of an email or something. And always, always imbed your copyright in readable letters on any image you upload to the 'Net, along with your contact info.

 

You might try sending them a bill and see what happens. Your argument could be, "You can't download an image off the internet and use it for commercial purposes without compensation. That's robbery!"

 

That's why I never, ever load any of my images onto an open server on the Internet. Well, that and the agreement I have with my agencies.

 

Best of luck. -BC-

Unless you registered the copyright within 3 months of production or before infringement occured, you can not get the maximum protection for your images.

 

You will need to register copyright before you could sue. My advise would be to register the series of photos you took (it costs the same as registering 1 image) and talk to the campaign.

 

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ40.html#registration1

Vernon,

 

It may not be too late to register the images and get statutory damages. You may register an image within 90 days of publication and be eligible for statutory damages, even if the infringement was committed before the date of registration. While the political campaign has printed these images, if it was done without your permission, that does not equal publication for copyright registration purposes. More information is needed to determine whether the temporary website page you created equals "published."

 

If you don't register your image within 90 days of publication or before the infringement, you may still recover actual damages.

 

Regardless of the above, you must register your images with the US Copyright Office before suing an infringer.

In the United States, copyright law is under federal jurisdiction, so that it doesn't matter what state you are in, the law is the same throughout.

what are you going to sue over? you're going to spend alot of money proving you should have been paid...what amount? $150?

 

i feel for you, i truly do. it's happened to me a few times and the feeling, at the time, is down right horrible.

 

the best thing that i can suggest is to contact them, thank them for using your property and are calling to enquire about the accounting dept info and for where to send an invoice. don't be rude, use a matter of fact voice. if they have a problem you demand it's immediate 24 hr removal. this is a political campaign and they will avoid all noise for a few hundred bucks.

and by contact, i ment through email, of course.

You could always contact the local news org and have them put on the 6pm news that the candidate "steals" images not his off the internet.

Thanks again for all your helpful information and suggestions.

 

I think I will go for the soft approach as what Eric suggests since it is only about one photo image. Retrieving all the campaigning brochures is not a realistic thing they can do although a web page modification is easy. I can report the result after making a contact if anyone is interested.

please do post the result Vernon. good luck, i hope you win one for us.

They won't help you in Canada.

 

Get a Canadian lawyer or as suggested, try the smoother, gentler approach. Next time, provide a clear licensing agreement or statement when passing a picture to a low level functionary - in writing. Maybe even get a receipt or document with an e-mail to try a paper trail.

<p>I sent an email to the candidate a few days after I posted my this question here. In my email, I wrote all I needed to say about the photo usage issue and kept my tone nice and positive based on your folks? suggestions. He replied my email in twenty-four hours and let me contact with one person of a PR firm to resolve the issue. This person told me that the photo was select for its composition from a pile of photos passed to them by the candidate. He was told those photos were ?public? and he didn?t have any information of when, where, by who.

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So your e-mail took the campaign team a bit by surprise. The campaign certainly had no intention of using a photo without photographers' permissions, ...

</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>

Clearly, it was never the campaign's intent to use ANY commercial (private) photo without permission -- that's just bad business, and is unethical, not to mention illegal. I am a strong copyright proponent and work with photographers regularly in my business. We're very clear in contractual terms and copyrights.

</BLOCKQUOTE>

<p>And he agreed to pay a usage fee, which was my only demand, for the photo used on the web site for a period of 30 days and a small size photo in 53,000 copies of the election brochures. I accepted the amount. So, this issue was resolved by the election day.

 

<p>I would like to take this opportunity to thank all your folks? information. I certainly learn how to handle this type issue in a proper way with this instance.