Who Owns Intellectual Property Rights for our Instagram, Flickr and Twitter Photos?
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Transcript of Who Owns Intellectual Property Rights for our Instagram, Flickr and Twitter Photos?
Who owns intellectual property rights for our Instagram, Flickr
and Twitter photos?
Every decade of recent history seems
to have its own defining characteristic.
People talk about the Roaring 20s, the
Depression-stricken 30s, the free-spirited 60s, the
rise of IT in 2000s
The most defining characteristic of the
decade we are living in now is probably social
media.
We all love connecting with people, adding friends, and
most of all, sharing. Instagram, Facebook or Twitter are playing
a very important role on our screens and in our lives.
But living in a world where sharing thoughts, moments, or photos with millions of people is literally as easy
as tapping a button, privacy and intellectual property are two
concepts that are quite problematic.
THE PROBLEM!
Once you put a photo up on Instagram or Flickr, it seems to belong to the world. And it does, up to a point, in that
anyone else can see it.
Some people see an interesting photo on Instagram or Flickr and take it without asking if
they are allowed to or wondering whether they are doing the right thing or not.
A thousand shares later, the author of that photo might see their picture on the home page
of a website, without having any idea how it ended up there.
Or, even worse, they might see it in shop, as a
print on a T-shirt sold by a famous fashion brand all
over the world.
CASE STUDY!
This is what happened to Tuana Aziz, a commercial photographer
from Sweden, who discovered that the Spanish fashion brand
Mango was using one of his photos without his permission.
Aziz shared the photo on Instagram in August 2011
and made it his profile picture in February 2012.
Aziz came across the shirt featuring his photo in a
shop in Sweden and then discovered that the brand
was selling it online as well.
Aziz’s case is not unique, one of the most notorious case is probably the one
of Daniel Morel.
Morel was awarded $1.2M in the lawsuit against Agence
France-Presse, after the company used one of his Twitter photos without
permission.
As a photo-journalist, Morel took photos in Haiti, after the 2010
earthquake. One of his photos, depicting a native woman trapped
under the rubble, was pulled by AFP from his Twitter account and used
without his consent.
Given the fact that Morel was finally compensated after a 3 year lawsuit, this
case was a lucky one.
The same cannot be said about the AFP
representatives, who lost more than time and money.
They also lost some of their prestige and maybe the trust of their readers. And all of this because they did not think twice before using a Twitter
account that did not belong to them.
JOIN LOBSTER!
Lobster is trying to change this mindset and protect
intellectual property by convincing people in need of visual content that it is better
to buy than to steal.
As a buyer, you can purchase a license for a
photo for as little as $0.99 and use that photo as
many times as you want.
Licensing from users via Lobster gives you peace of
mind and keeps your lawyer or the lawyers of your
company headache-free.
Because Lobster wants to help us appreciate social
media for what it is: a place where information is exchanged, not stolen.
Join Lobster Marketplace and make sure you’re making history!
Share your stories of stolen social content with
us and we will publish them on our Facebook
page!