About two months ago, I read a tweet of @MartijnKleppe (be sure to follow him if you’re Dutch/Belgian and into photojournalism) in which he linked to an article on the website of Dutch newspaper AD. The article (about people having boisterous sex in the city of Papendrecht, translation of the lead and first paragraph below) used a photo from Flickr as an illustration, without crediting the photographer.
Translation of the article
Neighborhood annoyed by boisterous sex
PAPENDRECHT – Inhabitants of the Talingstraat in Papendrecht are looking for a solution for a couple of neighbors whom having boisterous sex.
The couple moved in a short while ago and argue nearly every day. When the argument is over, they reconcile with noisy and passionate sex, which is still noticeable on the street.
This entry was written by , posted on November 18, 2009 at 15:56, filed under Ethics, Legal and tagged Ethics, flickr, Legal. Leave a comment over here.
Photographer Jeffrey Chapman just tweeted a link to a blog entry on PDNPulse. The post is about the latest issue of GUP Magazine, a photography magazine from my own country Holland. The magazine published photos of London-based photographer Ben Roberts, without notifying the photographer or asking for their permission (or even for higher-res photos).
To be honest, I’ve never heard of this magazine, which is quite a surprise to me, since I was under the impression that I knew most Dutch arty-farty magazines. I think it goes without saying that every photographer wants to know if, when, how and where their work will be published. But GUP obviously didn’t realize this.
Publisher Peter Bas Mensink posted the following comment on Ben Roberts’ blog.
“… This is a magazine born out of love for the medium and respect for the photographers. It’s not profitable and probably will never be. It’s a podium for photographers (read our statement on our website). For every category in the magazine we contact the photographers involved, however for bkmrks this proofed quite impossible. contacting ±15 photographers worldwide – every issue – is a very complicated thing. We’ll get photographers wanting a say in the text we write, wanting to supply us with their own text, diverting us to their gallery, who are on assignment abroad, not reachable etc. etc. etc. We work deadlines….”
The arguments Mensink makes, are pretty ridiculous in my opinion. Every photographer either has a simple contact form or a mailto-link on his or her website. It will only take a couple of minutes to send an email to a photographer, asking for permission to publish.
If, like the publisher comments, the photographer doesn’t respond before the deadline, just publish the photos of another photographer. I know that deadlines can sneak up on you, but important stuff like this shouldn’t suffer from deadlines.
EDIT: A few hours after my post, I received an email from Peter Bas Mensink, asking me to publish the rest of his comments. I don’t really see any reason for that to be honest (I’ve read them all, on Roberts’ blog anyway, and you can do the same if you wish), but I would like to add the following.
I obviously like magazines that are created for the love of photography, and I think it’s okay for a non-profit magazine to publish photos without paying the photographer. So for me, it isn’t about money at all, but just about common manners. I don’t know if Mensink is a photographer too, but I bet he would like to know if photos of him will be published.
This entry was written by , posted on October 13, 2009 at 21:09, filed under Ethics, Twitter and tagged Ethics, magazine, Twitter. Leave a comment over here.
