RSSProtect Copyright Epuker Urges
Pete Jenkins, NUJ representative and EPUK member reinforced the value of copyright in a lecture to students last week reports Amateur Photographer.
Jenkins, vice-chair of the National Union of Journalists’ Photographers Sub-Committee addressed the University of Westminster and stressed the importance of retaining copyright in today’s market of ‘fee erosion’ and ‘increasingly detrimental’ contracts.
He told the students: ‘When I was younger we didn’t have copyright in the same way that we do today. I could go and do a half-day shift for a newspaper such as the Daily Telegraph and earn £60. This would be the same as a forklift truck driver would earn in a week. In 1978 these were 60 very good reasons to stop being a forklift truck driver and become a full-time professional sports photographer. Thirty years later a similar warehouseman will be earning £300 but that same sports shift for a national newspaper will earn the photographer between £135 and £175 depending on the publication – the same as in 1994’.
