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.