The Copyright Fight – David Bailey weighs in…

Today is the day when the UK Government could vote to include a seemingly innocuous clause in an otherwise largely uncontroversial piece of legislation that will not only harm our industry but also place this country at odds with a vital international treaty. It is upsetting, bizarre and unnecessary to the point of being farcical.

The BPPA has been trying very hard to get the Government to see sense and drop the copyright clause from the Enterprise Regulatory Reform Bill for a while now. In a world where the intervention of a celebrity can unclog jams and open doors we decided to ask UK Photography’s biggest celebrity, David Bailey, to write to cabinet members on behalf of all owners and creators of intellectual property. He decided to write to George Osborne MP, The Chancellor of the Exchequer personally and he has given us permission to circulate that letter as widely as we wish – and here it is…

David Bailey’s letter to George Osborne MP

The text of the letter in full:

Dear George

I am writing because I am appalled at what the government is doing to our rights in the ERRB (Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill). Why the ERRB by the way? Why can’t copyright be dealt with properly in a proper Copyright Bill? I’m told everyone will be able to get their hands on our so-called “orphans” so libraries and museums can publish old photographs whose authors have long been forgotten. But never mind what’s lying around on dusty old shelves, what about the millions of “orphans” that are being created now every day!

Why? Because social media, and everyone else for that matter routinely strip our names and contact details from our digital files. They simply should not be allowed to get away with this. They can because our government refuses to give us the right to our names by our pictures (Moral rights). So now commercial organisations will be allowed to make money from our “orphans”, but not us, the creators.

This legislation should never have been even considered without first giving us our moral rights, and is contrary to our rights under the Berne Convention. Why the rush? A scheme, the Copyright Hub – a scheme backed by the government – is being developed to ensure that those who wish to find our pictures can not only do so quickly online, but also find the contact details of the pictures’ owners. You are about to put the cart before the horse.

I’m told the real reason for speed is that “releasing” orphans will create growth. We all understand the need for growth. But where’s the evidence? The seemingly impressive financial figures presented originally in the Hargreaves Review have mysteriously had to be revised – down by 97%! Which now apparently amount to no more than 80p per taxpayer per year. Given the damage this legislation will now cause to taxpaying creators, damage no-one has so far taken into account, the effect of this legislation on economic growth will in fact be negative.

It’s not too late to think again!

Best,

David Bailey

Another open letter to Professor Greenslade

An Open letter written by Chris Eades – a member of The BPPA’s Board in response to Professor Roy Greenslade’s inaccurate blog on The Media Guardian website:

Dear Mr Greenslade

I am writing on behalf of your photographic colleagues in the British Press Photographers’ Association to express our disappointment and frustration at your recent series of articles about “paparazzi” seeking to photograph Vicky Pryce while in prison.

I regret to say that the suppositions upon which you have based your article are for the most part untrue, with the result that your subsequent analysis and opinions are based on an ignorance of the facts.

When photographers sought to correct your mistakes and question your motivations in slurring your colleagues you responded not by seeking the truth, but by turning off comments on your blog to disable further criticism.

As someone who lectures in journalism, and presumes to lecture his peers on ethics, it is distressing that you have made no effort to substantiate the facts – but have chosen instead to rely on rumour, supposition and lazy stereotypes with the unfortunate result that you have thereby reinforced those stereotypes.

For your information we have laid out below the true events surrounding the taking of pictures of Pryce, and have sought to address the questions that you raise about the implication of these events.

In short – No laws were broken, the PCC code was adhered to and there is a strong case that a govt minister and his wife both being jailed for criminal offences is a valid news story, strengthened by the perception that Pryce is receiving preferential treatment by being transferred to open prison less than a week after being convicted.

You question the legitimacy of photographing convicted criminals in prison – but there is a long tradition of doing so. Myra Hindley, Jeffrey Archer, Sarah Tisdall, George Best, Rose West, Ernest Saunders, Maxine Carr, even Dr Crippen have all been photographed in prison.

If you think this is wrong then campaign to change the law, or the PCC code – but please don’t vilify your beleaguered photographic colleagues for legitimate news gathering.

We respectfully request a correction in full – with equal prominence to the original articles.

Yours

Chris Eades
On behalf of the BPPA Committee

THE TRUTH

The true events surrounding the pictures on Pryce at Sutton Park prison are as follows.

On sunday 17th The Sun ran a story that Pryce had been transferred to an open prison after less than a week in prison. This is unusually soon for a prisoner, even on a short sentence, to be moved – and raises the legitimate question is Pryce receiving preferential treatment?

Five newspapers dispatched staff / regular freelances to the prison to try to obtain pictures of Pryce in her new surroundings. All of the photographers were news photographers, not paps, on wages for the day and acting under instruction of their respective picture desks.

(For clarity I define news photographers as those who photograph individuals in the news, as opposed to paparazzi who concentrate on celebrities. These may overlap but it is a good general distinction).

There are several points where pictures could be taken at Sutton Park, without the need to trespass on private property. The easiest of these is from the grounds of the church which overlook the rear of the prison.

Security staff at the prison became aware of photographers presence fairly early on the sunday, and came over to ask who they were and what they were doing. They were asked to not enter the prison grounds and to be relatively open with their activity so as not to cause security concerns. No request was made for them to leave.

On the Monday they were joined by two more photographers from Fame/Flynet – who joined the existing crowd in the church yard and on a footpath that provides a view of the front drive.

Photographers also met a man wearing a dog collar, who they assume to be the vicar. He passed the time of day with them but again did not at any time express concerns at their presence or request that they leave.

The photographers were openly present in the church grounds, in full view, and with the knowledge of both prison and church authorities.

On Wednesday 20th photographers spotted Pryce being escorted to an outbuilding which they took to be a library or education centre, roughly a hundred yards from the church yard – and took pictures which subsequently appeared online and in the next days Sun, Mirror, Mail and Telegraph. All photographers present got images. Flynet were fortunate to get the best angle, and subsequently the majority of the publications.

These pictures were taken openly from from the churchyard, with the knowledge of church and prison authorities – neither newspaper or agency photographer used subterfuge or trespassed on prison property. Very long lenses were not used, the distance being relatively short.

After the first of these picture appeared online the PCC forwarded a letter from Pryces family asking that photographers withdraw. The photographers had infact already pulled back, having got their picture. To the best of my knowledge none has returned to the prison since.

I know this account to be true – as I was there. I understand that Jim Bennett has also explained much of this to you in person.

ADDRESSING THE CRITICISM

In your first article you publish a series of untruths and make a number of suppositions as well as posing a number of questions.

You state that prison officers “prison officers asked the paparazzi to go away and allow the woman to serve her eight-month sentence for perverting the course of justice in peace” – This is factually untrue, no such request was made at any stage, either by prison officers or by the prison officers press liaison officer who came over for a chat.

You state that – “There is, of course, no proof that any newspaper commissioned the photographers. It is highly likely that the snappers turned up on their own initiative.” This supposition is untrue, at the point when this article was written the ONLY photographers in attendance were in fact working directly for papers.

You also pose the questions:
Is it in the public interest to take pictures of a person in jail?
Is it against the editors’ code of practice?
Is there a law against it?

Photographers working for papers do not as a rule get asked for their views on ethics, these being generally reserved for greater minds in nice warm offices. We tend instead to deal with the practical application of the rules on the ground.

But in answer to your first question “Is it in the public interest to take pictures of a person in jail?” the consensus between those on the ground was that it was questionable whether Pryce was receiving preferential treatment – and as such was a valid news story. The majority of editors with access to the pictures agreed.

In answer to your second question “Is it against the editors’ code of practice?”
You yourself admit that you are unclear as to which part of the code this would breach. The PCC advisory draws newspapers attention to section 4 harassment which states “ii) They must not persist in questioning, telephoning, pursuing or photographing individuals once asked to desist.”
As I have explained nobody at any stage asked photographers to desist or leave – until the advisory was issued by the PCC, by which time the photographers had already got their pictures and departed.
SO in answer to your question – In our opinion the PCC code was studiously observed.

As to your third question “Is there a law against it?”
No there isn’t

So to sum up the pictures are arguably in the public interest, do not breach the PCC and are not against the law. You have every right to debate this view – but you should make clear that these decisions are made by our bosses, rather that choosing to stereotype and vilify your news gathering colleagues.

When your original article was published a number of photographers commented on your blog that you had the facts wrong which you chose to ignore – choosing instead to repeat your allegations a day or so later, but this time disabling comments to prevent anyone challenging your inaccurate and biassed account.

Furthermore, while we are debating journalism ethics, may I take the opportunity to deplore your decision to publish an unattributed and cowardly attack from an “anonymous” press photographer. An attack full of inaccuracies, from someone who wasn’t even there.
(we all know an anonymous source usually means “my mate in the office” or “I made up these quotes”).

How can you justify publishing a cowardly attack without verification while censoring responses from photographers who were there?

The Copyright Fight

As the song goes ‘There may be trouble ahead’…except this time there is no ‘maybe’ about it. For those that recall the less-than-wonderful “Clause 43” of Labour’s “Digital Economy Bill” which proposed to legalise the use of Orphan Works and Extended Collective Licensing – well, despite its defeat it’s back and this time it’s personal.

Hidden away in a completely unrelated Bill – namely the ERRB (the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill) – are pretty much the same clauses that got thrown out before. The IPO (Intellectual Property Office) – a bunch of Patent-based Civil Servants in the fashion of Sir Humphrey from “Yes Minister” – were so miffed at their attempt to undermine photographer’s copyright being defeated that they’ve snuck their insidious plans back into Parliament hidden in a bill that has absolutely nothing to do with copyright.

There are many reasons why every photographer should be up in arms about this and we’ll list them below summarized by people who know far more about this than myself. The really, really important thing is that we still have the opportunity to send Sir Humphrey back to his Gentleman’s club in Pall Mall with a flea in his ear. They think it’s all over but it bloody well isn’t.

We still have time to effect change to the bill and even get the clauses thrown out (they shouldn’t be there anyway) but we have to act fast. We have to lobby the Lords and then we need to start a firestorm on our MP’s.

Interestingly we have some strange bedfellows as allies on this one including The Associated Press, Getty Images, Reuters, British Pathe, The Press Association, and the Federation of Commercial and Audiovisual Libraries, who have formed the International Media & Archive Consortium. They are threatening a judicial review should the bill become law, but it would be in everyone’s interest if it didn’t get that far.

This affects everyone who works in this country with a camera in their hands.

You all have to take the time to read what it means for you. Even if you just read the summary we’ve provided you’ll garner enough information to include in a letter to your MP or one of the Lords listed.

But it really is in our/your hands to do something for the good of all photographers working in the United Kingdom whether they know it or not.

Eddie Mulholland.

The proposals hidden in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill would do very serious damage to the livelihoods of UK photographers if adopted. We believe that the clauses should be removed rather than amended because:

1. They should be subject to full parliamentary debate, not buried in someone else’s bill and secondary legislation.
2. They rob photographers of their rights.
3. They would not create economic growth, they would damage it.
4. They break international law.
5. They would be subject to judicial review even as they are passing through the Commons.
6. They allow no room for the new “Copyright Hub” concept which, given time to get working, would deal with most of the problems.
7. They are no substitute for a dedicated and properly considered Copyright Bill – this is nothing more than a rights-damaging fudge proposed by the Intellectual Property Office.

At some point the IPO should learn to realize that the intellectual property that they are supposed to look after is not only that of big business, inventors but that of hundreds of thousands of small businesses and sole traders whose combined worth to the UK’s economy is substantial.

See a fuller explanation on The BPPA’s website

Follow Stop 43 - the campaigning group who did most to stop the orphan works clauses in the Digital Economy Act

An Open Letter to Sir George Young MP

Dear Sir George

One of the easiest ways for a backbench Member of Parliament to get noticed and to acquire a platform is to jump onto passing populist bandwagons. Over the years we have seen it many times but Nadine Dorries MP has just joined a very select club; those whose chasing of popularity and notoriety has become something more than a means to an end.

Nobody can possibly think that the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha was anything other than an absolute tragedy. Nobody apart, it seems, from Nadine Dorries. Not content with expressing normal human emotions and offering her sincere condolences to Ms Saldanha’s family and friends the MP for Mid Bedfordshire has done her best to try to blame members of the media in the United Kingdom for the tragedy. Writing on Twitter the former “I’m a Celebrity” contestant suggested that “paps” had driven the nurse to take her own life. This would seem like an attempt to attach the death to one of her own hobby-horses and put some pressure onto her Parliamentary colleagues to force greater restrictions on the press during the Leveson process.

Whether or not the Conservative Whip is returned to Mrs Dorries on a permanent basis, her actions on Twitter go way beyond Parliamentary Privilege and cross the line into ignorant defamation dressed up as human reaction.

The Board of The British Press Photographers’ Association would ask you to take Nadine Dorries MP’s activities on Twitter into account when you review her status as a Conservative MP and to remind her that her tweets could have consequences every bit as damaging as those of the two Australian disc jockeys whose unthinking actions led to Ms Saldanha’s death.

Yours Sincerely

The Board of The British Press Photographers’ Association

The BPPA gets its say at The Leveson Inquiry

Here’s a date for your diary: Tuesday the 7^th of February. “Why?” I hear you ask, well it is the day when The BPPA will finally get to appear before the Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practice & ethics of the press.

In our main submission to Lord Justice Leveson’s Inquiry we proposed a four-pronged solution to the issues raised in connection to photography at the hearings to date:

• Make the publishers of websites, blogs, magazines and newspapers and their editors financially and professionally responsible for any lack of due diligence in checking how, where and why pictures that they are publishing were taken. Photographs acquired from citizen journalists, CCTV systems and inexperienced photographers should have a clear and strict series of tests applied before publication to verify their provenance
• Images purchased from holders of UK Press Cards or from reputable agencies that are members of a United Kingdom Press Card Authority member body would require a lower standard of checking and proof because the photographer holding the press card would, according to the new ethical code, already have performed tests as they were shot. Should the images turn out to have been acquired irresponsibly, that would constitute a breach of the code of ethics that they sign up to when receiving their new UK Press Card
• Strengthening of the UK Press Card scheme with an enforceable code of conduct including the suspensions and cancellations of cards. This obviously will not stop the cowboys who don’t have genuine press cards but it will provide a framework within which to work
• Agree a simple outline about exactly which laws apply to photographers when they are going about their legitimate business: trespass, assault, intimidation, harassment and so on. It would also be advisable to clarify where and when the various elements of the Human Rights Act and the UN Convention on the Rights of The Child become applicable without allowing rich and powerful vested interests to slip a de-facto privacy law in by the back door

We started the ball rolling back in November when the association’s AGM took place and we started to discuss what we could do about the beating that press photographers were taking during the first couple of weeks worth of evidence at The Inquiry. Like most people, we had thought that the early stages of Lord Justice Leveson’s hearings would be about phone hacking but time-after-time the actions of photographers seemed to get more coverage than those of private detectives and over-zealous reporters.

Within days we had made our first submission in the form of an open letter to The Inquiry where we outlined our objections and sought to be awarded “core participant” status for the proceedings. The legal team behind the Leveson hearings took a couple of weeks to get back to us to let us know that we would not be offered that status they invited us to make a second and much more detailed submission by the beginning of January. We put the 18 page document in on time and following a few emails back and forth asking for clarification of one of our points we finally learned this week that it is all systems go for Tuesday, the 7^th of February.

The BPPA wants to be there at the table when solutions are discussed and when decisions are made. The BPPA wants the voices of press photographers to be heard. Most importantly, The BPPA wants to make sure that the profession comes out of this process with its reputation enhanced, with its future as secure as it can be and with improved media and public perceptions of who we are and what we do.

These are simultaneously worrying and exciting times for press photographers. As a profession we have worked hard to create some momentum towards those goals and it is our aim to keep that momentum going on February 7^th.

Visit The BPPA’s website.

Education, education, education…

Back in 1997 Tony Blair made his famous “education, education,education” speech. Well… he made at least three speeches where he used that line but that doesn’t stop it being an important landmark in British political history. Don’t worry, The BPPA isn’t going to get all party-political on you but we are very interested in education and we are currently looking into what we can do to promote press photography through education.

The first idea is to start very close to home and see if there is any way we can get some proper investment into continuing professional development (CPD) for working professionals. In these tight times, could there be something that our government could do to help with the costs of training and uprating our skills? How about a decent tax break for training? What if, instead of deducting the cost of training off of your marginal rate of taxation, you could deduct 50% or even 100% of the costs from your tax bill up to £2,000 in any given tax year? At the moment a £500 training session would still cost you £500 before you submit your tax return and then you would effectively get between £100 and £200 back off of your tax bill depending on whether you pay the Inland Revenue (above the basic amounts) at 20% or 40%. Wouldn’t it be a good idea if you could have the first £2,000 of training at 50%, 60% or even 100%?

At a point in the economic cycle where experts, pundits and commentators are all saying that the economy needs some proper stimulus measures, wouldn’t investing in CPD and training be a very good start? Professional organisations need to put this to MPs and our MPs need to put this to Ministers.

The second part of the association’s look towards education is a small pilot scheme for mentoring new photographers and students on industry specific courses using a Facebook Group where willing mentors – professionals with loads of relevant experience – can give some to give advice, criticism and answer questions from menthes. It’s in its very early stages but the willingness of some amazing photographers to take part shows just how much the profession wants to help channel the energies of new photographers in the right direction.

The third area we are looking at has come in response to an enquiry from a small company who want to encourage UK schools to get involved in publishing their own newspapers and to do it properly. The BPPA has offered some help and in return we want to get lots of messages out to schools, their teachers and their pupils:

• Copyright – every creative work has a copyright owner and students producing even the smallest newspapers need to be careful using other people’s work
• Ethics – based on the PCC Editor’s Code and various other codes of practice students should realise that journalistic ethics is NOT an oxymoron
• Economics – producing newspapers costs money and the older age groups involved in the project need to know just how much

The project hasn’t got enough funding yet and we have offered our support if they get it going and are prepared to emphasise these key points. In the USA almost every high school has a newspaper and the dream is that we can achieve that here too. It is no coincidence that Americans have a greater respect for the media than we do and maybe that could in some part be due to many more citizens having been involved in publishing early on in their education.

Whether or not you believe that Tony Blair and David Blunkett achieved anything with their big election issue of the ’97 election, there can be few people who don’t think that education in its widest sense is a good thing. It doesn’t matter whether you are at primary school or whether you have been in the industry for 25 years or more we could all benefit from knowing more about the press.

The Social Media Photo Conundrum

So, fellow professionals… answer me this… why should The BPPA be faced with a blank screen when visitors try to look at the photos on our Facebook page? 

The answer is, sadly, that there don’t seem to be any services out there who treat images with respect. If they aren’t stripping the metadata, they are selling your work. If they aren’t asking you to hand over your copyright they are making pictures far too easy to grab. Plus – once your work has been stolen/sold/borrowed we all know that getting it taken down or paid for requires a lot of effort and a not inconsiderable amount of resources.

Our work is very desirable if you are a penniless blogger or a corporate that ‘has no budget for pictures’ and a lot of our members work for agencies who have a ‘no pictures on social media’ policy. We want to show off our members’ work and we know that our pages, blogs and tweets would be far stronger with some of those superb pictures but do we want to take that risk? That is what you call a conundrum!

So what should we do? Should The BPPA remain in the mildly odd position of having to keep its Facebook page picture free or is there another way…