back to article Sky's the limit

When Sky News needed pictures of a shooting at Waterloo Station, it grabbed them from the nearest internet source – with neither acknowledgement nor payment. This episode has now ended happily, with Sky News agreeing to pay tweeter Joe Neale a fee for using his pictures – but the episode does provide a stark warning for all …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Horns

    Then again

    Perhaps (as in my case) you wouldn't want one of Rupe's Rags (or TV news for that matter) using your image under any circumstances, for any amount of money or other inducement. Ever.

    And 300 quid is really, really not enough by a long chalk for a fairly exclusive news pic and having your name dragged across Muppet TV..

    Devil Bill, cos there's no Devil Rupert

  2. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    In The Know

    You may be interested to know that Joe forgot to mention something in his rant against Rupert Murdoch....he used to work for MySpace, a subsidiary of News Corp!

    Hidden agenda?

  3. /\/\j17

    re: Then again

    "And 300 quid is really, really not enough by a long chalk for a fairly exclusive news pic and having your name dragged across Muppet TV..

    Devil Bill, cos there's no Devil Rupert"

    What nonsense!

    There is ONLY a Devil Rupert.

  4. Stu
    Badgers

    Am I to understand that...

    ...a pissy 30 second or less vid of an out-the-window shot of some police vehicles entitles you to bag some cash when shown on the Sky news website? Wow I'm going everywhere now with my camera ready!

    The vid could have been recorded months or years earlier about a totally different incident - and don't go saying its verifiable by looking at the file date stamp, u can only go by the features in the streets such as adverts and the like, so just make sure you steer your cam clear of such things.

    Ready . . . BREAK.

  5. Steven Hunter
    Thumb Up

    Adequate protection?

    "...put their photos online without adequate protection."

    Since he already owned the copyright on it, and we know how much the big media corporations love copyright law, what more was he supposed to do to prevent this?

    The answer in my opinion is to sue the living B'jesus out of them. Find a lawyer (or attorney, or barrister or whatever the English legal system calls them) willing to give it a go and sue for £1million.

  6. Brian Miller

    de-res and stamp a mark on it

    Well, if an image is unique, then de-res it and stamp a copyright across it so it can't be cropped out. Then of course they'll have to contact you for a good image, and then you can put the screws into them.

  7. FreeTard
    Thumb Down

    Sky news

    Award winning news channel......

  8. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    News Corp Insider

    I can also confirm that Joe Neale worked for MySpace which is part of News Corp. I'm not sure why he made such a public display out of himself slagging of News Corp when he has many friends within the organisation! Maybe he should have engaged brain before mouth, and looked to seek compensation privately away from the eye of the media.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Citizen Journalism Fail

    Just wonder what this will do for citizen journalism AND mainstream media. There's been a mostly positive adoption of user-generated content and citizen journalism by the mainstream media and this behaviour by jumped-up amateurs discourages users from publishing and discourages news organizations from utilising the power of user-generated content.

    Joe used to work for NewsCorp until this year. He's now blown his chances of returning to the company which incorporates half the world's media. For what? Not that I support right-wing media moguls like Murdoch but the people who used Joe's image are many many layers and degrees away from Murdoch, just people in an office in London waiting for Friday night like the rest of us so he hasn't proved any political point or achieved anything other than appearing ungracious and pocketing £300.

    In saying all of that, if Joe's intention was personal PR he did an amazing job ;)

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How about instead of moaning on Twitter

    he phoned the fucking newsdesk for a quicker resolution?

  11. Number6

    Inevitable

    It was only a matter of time before something like this happened. There have been previous cases of photos being acquired by large corporations; I remember allegations of AP managing to not only do this, but then sticking an AP logo on the picture as well.

    It's just nice when it happens to Mr "News is not Free" Murdoch and the world realises that actually, his company would have taken it without paying, and would then probably have objected to others copying it from them.

    (Yes, it does cost money for good-quality journalism, but I haven't considered any of the print media to be good enough overall quality to make me part with my cash for years.)

  12. This post has been deleted by its author

  13. Apocalypse Later

    @Steven Hunter

    The lawyer you first approach in Britain is called a solicitor. He fetches in the barrister at a later stage. Oddly enough, "soliciting" is also an offence in British law.

  14. Havin_it
    Flame

    Interesting to note...

    That all those slating this man's actions are ACs, don't you think?

    Big News (and Big Entertainment, where online "artistic endeavours" aka lolcats and shit are concerned) have been playing fast and loose with user-generated content ever since they became aware of its existence. Damn right it is an exploitative practice that deserves to be shamed and punished, because you and I know how they would (and do) behave when their own "intellectual property" is used without them getting their vig.

    It's a hell of a lot harder for individuals to even regulate thieving of their work, and you can bet that many such abuses go undetected. Even if detected, going the legal route is too expensive for most individuals (even though the outcome is likely to be favourable, because a win for the thief would raise questions they don't want raised). As such, publicising the abuse is probably the smartest thing to do in order to get your due.

    Certain people above seem to feel that the guy waived his rights by putting the material online in the first place. Horseshit; for the big boys to be able to claim any such rights over the original content they punt, him and his aunty Jessie have to have the exact same rights or the law is meaningless and unenforceable. The medium through which they publish is immafuckingterial.

    Oh, and as for Murdoch's minions being "...just people in an office in London waiting for Friday night like the rest of us", so what? I could give a shit what they get up to on Friday night; if they can't get their fingers out of whatever orifice and contact a copyright-owner for attribution and terms, fuck 'em.

  15. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    @stu

    @stu, I don't think it matters if the footage is current or not -- even if it were essentially stock footage, the creator of the footage is compensated.

    That said, I also agree with "Anonymous Coward Posted Saturday 29th August 2009 03:01 GMT", I would not put up twitpics and then expect to be paid for their use. On the other hand, I can see the point that Murdoch's being a real asshat expecting to charge for news if he's just going to collect it for free via "citizen journalism", I'm thinking this invoice may be motivated by that as much as the actual use of his photo.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like