Making money with mobile photos
OUT-LAW Radio, 15/02/2007
We talk to the man behind a company that represents the growing
legion of citizen photo-journalists to the big boys of old media,
and keeps a few Royal Family secrets along the way.
A text transcription follows.
This transcript is for anyone with a hearing impairment or who
for any other reason cannot listen to the MP3 audio file.
The following is the text spoken by OUT-LAW journalist Matthew
Magee.
Hello and welcome to OUT-LAW
Radio, the weekly forecast that keeps you up to date on all the
twists and turns of the world of technology law. Every week we
bring you the latest news and in-depth features that help you to
make sense of the every changing laws that govern technology today.
My name is Matthew Magee and coming up on this week's show we hear
from a business that is determined to make the new media phenomenon
of user generated content clear, and whose daily ethical choices
include whether or not to expose the secrets of the Royal
Family.
But first, the news.
- The European Parliament has
blocked a European Patent Agreement ("EPLA");
- Google says it will appeal
a copyright infringement ruling; and
- business letters can be
copyrighted.
The controversial European
Patent Litigation Agreement has been declared illegal by the
Legal Service of the European Parliament. It said that the
proposed EPLA directly contradicts existing European law and
treaties.
Internal Markets
Commissioner, Charlie McGreevy, had proposed the EPLA which would
create an integrated judicial system for patent disputes including
uniform roles of procedure and a Common Appeal Court.
The Patent Court would
supersede national courts and critics have argued that it would
take control of patent policy out of the hands of the elected
European Parliament and put it into the hands of unelected
officials. Critics also worry that the EPLA could make software
patents more common.
The Legal Service said that
the plans conflict with existing EU Law and that the area was the
EU's exclusive responsibility.
Google will appeal this
week's judgment from a Belgian court that it broke the law when it
used newspaper material in Google News. The company will have to
stop publishing links to certain newspaper sites having been found
liable for copyright infringement.
Google News uses headlines
and takes snippets from thousands of news sources worldwide
including newspapers, broadcasters and on-line publishers. A group
of Belgian newspaper publishers, Copiepresse, took Google to court
in Belgium and won. Google is disappointed with today's judgment
which we will appeal said a Google spokeswoman. She said "we
believe that Google News is entirely legal, we only ever show the
headlines and a few snippets of text and small thumbnail images. If
people want to read the entire story they have to click through to
the newspaper's website".
Business letters can be
protected by copyright and forwarding them to others can be an
infringement the High Court has ruled. The decision could have
implications for email communication because the same principles
will apply.
The ruling was made in a
dispute over roofing slates and experts say that the protection
will as easily apply to business emails which are routinely
forwarded but not every letter email will enjoy copyright
protection, which is reserved for works which involve original
skill or labour and which do not involve copying the work of
another person.
That was this week's OUT-LAW
News.
While commentators trill
about the revolutionary power of citizen media one man has been
providing user-generated content to the newspapers of the world for
over a year. From scandalous photos of TV stars and lesbian
clinches to shocking shots of plane wreckage hanging off a New York
tower block just minutes after impact, Scoopt is re-writing the
rules in the ultra competitive news photography world while
building something of a bridge between old and new media. Founder,
Kyle MacRae, operates out of a small Glasgow office from where he
tries to build a new kind of business.
"Scoopt is essentially a
content agency we are the broker between members of the public and
the mainstream media, so in practice, if somebody happens to get a
newsworthy photograph or video and they want to make some money
from that then it is very very hard for the man in the street to
deal directly with the press so they come through us and we then
licence that work, that content commercially at professional
prices. The content creator keeps copyright which is a critical
part of this equation. We split the sales money 50/50 every time we
keep a sale."
Selling to mainstream
newspapers in the UK, the US and further a field, Scoopt has built
up something of a reputation as the "go-to" guys for
amateur photographers and picture desks alike. You would think the
agency would sell nothing but shots of soap starlets falling out of
night clubs and small dresses, but MacRae thinks that the long term
future is in news footage.
"The two areas we are
looking for are news and entertainment. Entertainment is typically
celebrity. Now we are really more interested in the news angle
here. I think that is where the future is. The quick buck, the fast
buck is obviously in the celebrity content but there are all sorts
of issues that go along with that, there are ethical and legal
issues that we need to tackle everyday. It is about somebody who is
just in the right place at the right time to capture a newsworthy
event. Particularly when something, like most news, something that
just happens by surprise. The professional photographers and
journalists are not on the scene. There is no way they could be but
somebody is. They have got a camera phone or a camera in their
pocket. They can snap a photograph or video. They can record eye
witness reports. They can record podcasts. They can get all sorts
of content and feed that into the mainstream media."
MacRae believes that the
right person, in the right place, at the right time can end up
capturing the iconic image of an event.
"There was an incident in
Manhattan recently where the baseball star Cory Liddle
accidentally, presumably, flew his light aircraft in the side of a
skyscraper. Two people were killed. Now this was in Manhattan which
is the most densely populated, one of the most densely populated
places on the planet and full of professional journalists but
somebody working in an office directly across at the same height as
this accident saw the bang, picked up his camera, lent out of the
window and got a series of fantastic snaps."
"He then did a quick Google
and thought there has got to be some value in these who will I go
to? Found Scoopt and sent them to us. Now this all happened within
five minutes and we had these pictures out to the press in the UK
within three minutes of that happening. So within 10 minutes from
the scene we had pictures on the news rooms. We scored the front
page of The Times off that. Also the Glasgow Herald. The Sun used
it quite large inside and we even got a couple of other sales. The
helicopters were out. They had the pro-snappers running along the
roof tops trying to get pictures but our guy was just there
first with a camera in hand, took the pictures, got them to us –
bingo! We got them out quickly."
So how much money can a
picture like that generate? Surprisingly that image earned just a
few thousand pounds, says MacRae. A single sale of a celeb pic
could earn a multiple of that but MacRae says news photos have a
lower commercial value. His best earning picture he says was one of
Lost star, Michelle Rodriguez, cavorting in a bar with another
woman and no small amount of tequila. Though he would not divulge
how much that picture had earned. He has previously said that a
single shot of a Dr Who monster earned £2,000 but with the privacy
law beginning to take shape in the UK via the Human Rights Act and
with ethical sensitivities about stars rights to privacy MacRae
must tread a fine legal and moral line. I asked him how he had done
that.
"It essentially boils down
to what is the difference between an intrusive paparazzi style of
shot and what is a legitimate photo opportunity and if you asked me
to define it I could not begin to do so. I can generally make that
editorial decision when I look at a picture coming in, as does the
rest of the team, and that is the first thing we do. We look at
this; we have to make all sorts of editorial decisions. The first
one is simply is, is it commercial? Is there a market for this:
yes/no? If it is commercial we then have to think: Great, is it
actionable? Is it legal? Is it unethical? If somebody's legitimate
right to privacy being breached here? If so, is that the end of the
story or is there really an overwhelming public interest angle here
that would override that concern? If so we might push it out to the
press."
"Beyond all of that we would
then take the commercial decision, the internal decision: Do we
need protection here and does our member need protection and how do
we get that? In that case what we might do is talk to a newspaper
who is interested and say: 'You can have this but you have to
indemnify Scoopt and Scoopt's member against all possible action.'
It is always kind of complicated. You got the member of the public
who takes a picture, perhaps in totally good faith, has no idea
that it might be actionable or it might be a breach of privacy or
perhaps does not understand the difference between public property
and private property. If it is a picture taken at a red carpet
event outside, that is very different from a picture taken inside
the cinema or inside the theatre."
I wondered what was the best
picture or video he ever turned away for legal or for ethical
reasons.
"The best? I am just
wondering how much I can talk about this one. The best one – it
involved the Royal Family. A video of the Royal Family. Essentially
it was private pictures and videos of the Royal Family taken by the
Royals themselves for a particular event that through some bizarre
sequence of events ended up with somebody who sent it to us."
"Now we looked at that. My
initial instinct was: 'Well, you know this is private.' Whatever my
feelings or anybody else's feelings about the Royals – this is
essentially just a private matter. We then considered it
commercially and thought actually this could be pretty valuable but
what are the risks involved? You have got all sorts of issues here.
The copyright, well we do not have the copyright, we have no
legitimate licence to that copyright nor does the Scoopt member who
gave it to us. Do we have an overriding public interest story here?
Is it worth it? Is this a story that is going change the nature of
the monarchy and Britain? In which case if any of that is true –
yes. We would put it out to market if shows something startling.
Some blatant hypocrisy on the part of the Royal Family –
great, you have got a news story. In this case it was just
completely harmless. It was innocuous, it was nice but it just felt
wrong. So we weighed all of that up and 24 hours later we decided
no, we are just not going to handle this."
By building a bridge between
old and new media MacRae and his wife Jill, still the only full
time employees of Scoopt, have managed to provide themselves with a
living and contributors with the occasional payday. It can come at
a cost though and MacRae says that for this emerging medium it is
important to keep a sense of perspective when out snapping for
Scoopt.
"We have been asked in an
accusatory tone sometimes, that by waving the dollar signs,
are we encouraging people to become paparazzi or more seriously to
put themselves in a position of danger if there is a burning oil
field or a burning building, is somebody going to rush into it with
a camera trying to make a buck?"
"While I would like, I would
love to be able to duck the issue and say no people are more
sensible they would never do it, I think actually there is a risk
that people will go too far and we, as an agency, have a
responsibility to do everything we can to explain and to guide and
to exhort people not to do the wrong thing. If you come across an
event where people need help, go and help them; do not take photos.
Professional photojournalists can probably justify shooting rather
than helping. That is their job. They are paid to do it and they
also insured in dangerous situations and somebody will pick up the
pieces. Members of the public are not. It is just the wrong thing
to do. You drop the camera, you help where you possibly can and
then you get yourself the hell out into a position of safety. It is
an issue here, that I wish was not, but we cannot duck it, we have
to be responsible."
That is all we have time for
this week. Thanks for listening.
Why not get in touch with
OUT-LAW Radio. Do you have a legal problem you would like to
discuss on air? Do you know of a technology law story? We would
love to hear from you on radio@out-law.com.
Make sure you tune in next
week. For now, goodbye.
OUT-LAW Radio was
produced and presented by Matthew Magee for international law firm,
Pinsent Masons.
