The EPUK Fair Play for Citizen Journalists Campaign

EPUK believes in fair treatment for eyewitness photographers who submit their photos to commercial media organisations.

How will you achieve this?

There is little objective information to guide the person in the street with a cameraphone who suddenly finds him or herself at the centre of a major breaking story. EPUK presents here some guidance for CJ’s about what to do, and more importantly, what not to do in order to be treated fairly. To help people find this guidance we need to raise its rating in search engines such as Google, and to get that result we want to encourage everyone who reads this to link back to this page, preferably from their own home page. If we can get enough links and visitors to this page, our information will appear high in Google’s search results, more people will find it, CJ’s will be better informed, and we hope media organisations will be forced to reconsider their unfair practices.

FP4CJ Logos and download links

For this campaign to be effective, we want as many people as possible to display the campaign logo prominently on their websites and link it back to this campaign page at http://www.epuk.org/resources/FP4CJ.html. Please download one of the logos (you’ll need to click here or here), and add it your webpage somewhere prominent, preferably your home page. If it helps, the HTML code to do this is below, for you to cut and paste.

<a href="http://www.epuk.org/resources/FP4CJ.html" target="_blank"> <img src="FP4CJ_medium.jpg" alt="I support the EPUK FP4CJ campaign" width="310" height="160" border="0"> </a>  

<a href="http://www.epuk.org/resources/FP4CJ.html" target="_blank"> <img src="FP4CJ_small.jpg" alt="I support the EPUK FP4CJ campaign" width="207" height="107" border="0"> </a>  

What is the problem?

EPUK comprises full time professional photographers. Our business is under attack by commercial interests seeking to extract more usage rights for less money. Citizen Journalists have no prior experience nor understanding of the business, nor what they are committing themselves to. In most instances they are losing out financially and unknowingly agreeing to unreasonable and unfair terms and conditions.

So you want to deter Citizen Journalism?

No, we think it is a positive development for democratic media, for photography and for news coverage. There will always be important events at which amateur photographers become the eyes of the world, and as cameraphones and digital cameras become more popular, the usefulness of this is increasing. There is no difference between an amateur and a professional eyewitness except in experience and knowledge of what to do next. It is in all our interests to ensure both are treated fairly by the media companies.

I just want to share my photos with the public, why should I care about being paid?

It is your choice. But realise that the companies to whom you supply material will only share it with the rest of the world for substantial sums of money. If they don’t pay you, they get to keep the lot and your generosity toward these wealthy corporations may extend to hundreds or thousands of pounds. Would you choose to hand over a bag full of cash to these companies? That is the net result of donating your material, and it’s a lot different from your benevolent intentions.

I consider payment distasteful and exploitative. What do I do?

If you have a moral objection to money changing hands over your photos take care to release it to indymedia (http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/) or newsblogging websites, who will circulate it freely. Another possibility is Flickr (http://www.flickr.com). Your material may still be appropriated and used by commercial media if it is sufficiently newsworthy, but they can’t buy and sell what is freely available. You might consider donating any payments you receive to a charity of your choice, rather than letting media organisations keep it.

Who owns the copyright?

As the creator, you do, automatically. Unless you assign your copyright to someone else in writing, it remains yours. But if you supply to a commercial media outlet, most will attempt to get you to agree that – although you retain copyright – they can do whatever they like without paying you anything, so that they may maximise their earnings. Effectively, they are acquiring a license which is so broad they may as well own the copyright.

Worse, most also expect you to indemnify them against any legal action that may result from their use of your photograph, even though you have no control over what they do with it. This means you will be held liable for all legal costs and damages, should, for example, someone depicted in your photo bring an action against the publisher, because the publisher has inaccurately captioned the image – eg said that the person is a suspected terrorist when they are not. It is possible you could lose everything you own because of misuse of a picture you gave away.

These clauses are buried deep within the small print that few people read in the heat of the moment. The BBC is one of the worst and most persistent offenders. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/terms/

So how should I distribute my eyewitness photographs?

Sending your images direct to a freephone number or email address belonging to an organisation like the BBC is not a good idea. You will lose all control and ability to negotiate terms. You won’t receive any payment, no matter how much profit they make. You won’t even get a by-line.

At present, the best option is probably Scoopt (http://www.scoopt.com ) Scoopt is a specialist agency that will market your photos in return for a 50% commission on gross sales. Their terms and conditions are pretty fair; you retain copyright and the right to market the image elsewhere after a set period. What is slightly questionable is that Scoopt insist on being able to continue to sell your images in perpetuity, but all sales remain on a commission basis. You need to open a Scoopt account online before you can submit images. EPUK has no connection with Scoopt, it’s just that they appear reasonably ethical.

On occasion, CJ’s have handed material to professional crews at incident scenes. This is not a very sensible thing to do, because pro’s are usually preoccupied with their own coverage and unlikely to be too concerned about contractual niceties like payment, copyright and attribution. It isn’t their job.

For exceptional photos of exceptional news events, most agencies will market your images on a similar commission basis. But be clear that you are not handing over your copyright.

If you are feeling brave, there is no reason why you should not approach TV companies or newspapers directly. In the first instance you need to contact their news or picture desk and clearly explain what you have. If you can persuade them to view it – which can be difficult – make sure they understand that it is your copyright material and they do not have permission to use it until terms are agreed. Once they have seen the material is the time to talk terms, not before. Most will make an initial derisory offer, but if they really want it badly will negotiate seriously. Bear in mind that rarity and exclusivity add hugely to the value of major news images. An everyday image may only net £80-£500 depending on usage size, whereas exclusive first use of a unique and important image can be well into 5 figures. Stipulate that if they plan to syndicate the image (resell it to other publishers around the world), copyright remains yours and you require a 50/50 split.

All told, an agency like Scoopt is probably worthwhile, since they know what publishers will pay and can negotiate harder. They also know when an image may do better as an exclusive at a premium price, or sold non-exclusively to many different publishers.

[NOTE: Scoopt folded in February 2009]

What else?

Do not take risks or endanger others in order to get photos. Far too many professionals are killed and injured every year in the course of their work despite training and experience. You are unlikely to be adequately insured for some kinds of incident (many life policies exclude acts of war, civil disorder or terrorism), and any recklessness is likely to be deemed to invalidate your cover entirely. Also, if you cause harm or damage in the process of gathering images, you will not be covered by public liability insurance which professionals have as a matter of course.

Follow police instructions and stay out of the way of emergency services. In some circumstances the police may demand that you cease photographing or surrender images to them on pain of arrest. They seldom have any legal powers to do this but unfortunately there is a bit of a trend toward arresting people taking photos in unpropitious circumstances under Terrorism Act law. This is difficult even for accredited professionals to deal with. In general, be polite, avoid confrontation.

Journalists and photographers sometimes attract negative public opinion for being ‘vultures’, so don’t forget to be a decent human being first, a photographer second.

If you are going to pursue the Citizen Paparazzi trend of opportunistically photographing unsuspecting celebrities with cameraphones, be aware that, aside from risking being incredibly rude, there are laws regarding where and in what circumstances you may take photographs. You will find more information about the legalities of photography elsewhere on EPUK.

Background

In the last year or so the contributions of ‘Citizen Journalists’ have formed an increasingly important part of media coverage of major breaking news events. The terrorist attacks in London on 7 July 2005 were something of a watershed for news organisations. No professionals were present on the underground trains or near the bus that exploded, but scores of commuters had cameraphones. Many, wishing to share their experiences, submitted their images to the BBC, ITV and other media. On that day, the BBC received more than 300 such photographs. Those photographs formed a vital part of visual coverage of events which were for the most part hidden and off-limits. Audiences for main news programmes increased by 25%.

By the time of the Buncefield fire in Hemel Hempstead, CJ was truly on the media map. Media organisations were actively soliciting images as soon as the first reports aired. The BBC alone received 500.

The Mumbai floods, the South Asian tsunami, the Pakistan earthquake all relied heavily on amateur coverage donated for the public interest /pro bono/.

A single notable exception was the amateur video coverage of the arrest of two half-naked terrorist suspects on a balcony in Notting Hill. This footage sold for £65,000 to ITV News & the Daily Express, and they considered it good value. It is a fair bet that they more than earned it back as the footage aired around the world.

Which begs a question : why are the BBC and some other commercial entities who actively solicit photographs not paying commercial rates? Why are they in fact paying nothing at all for an asset that has hard, substantial commercial value to them? And why are they pushing all legal liability onto donors of material? These questions have been publicly asked on many occasions on the BBC website, and the response is invariably along the lines ‘if people don’t like it, they shouldn’t send in their photos’. No wonder the BBC says it is ‘delighted with the response’ to their appeals for free photos.

EPUK Editorial Photographers United Kingdom and Ireland. The private mailing list and public resource for editorial photographers