Copyright Infringement – Times of India again
Our mainstream print media is now making it a habit to steal images from Flickr or blogs and use it for free without leaving any proper credits to the original photographer. I have been tracking such incidents right from the day my picture had been stolen and used by a book publisher.
Here is a summary of copyright infringement in the recent past.
Mridula was on a flight from Delhi to Bangalore and while flipping the pages of airline magazine she had found a photo taken by her used in their featured article. No credits were given.
I was browsing through the book review section of Mathrubhumi weekly and found out that one of my photos were used for a book cover. The person who stole the photo did not leave any credit to me.
The same person, Shanavas M A (of Madhyamam weekly), had stolen a Canadian citizen’s picture to use in the cover for Madhyamam. And this seems to be a regular practice of Mr. Shanavas and Madhymam.
Haree had to face the same situation when Madhyamam (again) used one of his photos for an article of their supplement.
Hindustan Times stole a photo taken by Nita and published it in their newspaper without any due credits.
Twilight Fairy found out that her photo was used by Times of India and when contacted she got an arrogant response.
Seema also had to face the same where Times of India becomes the culprit once again.
The latest victim is Sreenidhi whose photo has been flicked off by Times of India.
This is such a bad situation that the mainstream print media houses are showing such ignorance towards image copyright. They need to be held responsible and dragged to courts. High time that we have stricter copyright laws.
(Image courtesy: Seema K K)
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September 25th, 2008 at 9:16 am
The copyright laws are there Jo, but there is no enforcement. I had complained to the press watchdog body, the Press Council of India, hoping to resolve this without going to the courts. But they didn’t even bother to respond and ofcourse Hindustan Times has ignored me too. No use having laws if no one respects them. Its shocking though that mainstream dailies are doing this. We need to publicize this Jo, beyond our blogs, and I don’t know how.
September 25th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
It is bad that the PCI did not even respond!! When responsible authorities are showing this level of ignorance it is obvious that the media houses escape in such situations.
To publicize it, how about doing something through the Citizen Journalist option in CNN – IBN? What do you think?
September 27th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Why can’t these people file a petition and seek compensation for the use of their work? These publications are from established companies and it won’t be hard to take them to court, if there is enough evidence to support their claim.
Everything else is simply whining.
September 27th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
T.K >> Some of us have fought this on our own way. Mridula filed a complaint and got a mere 1000 bucks for her picture. I lodged a complaint and the same settled upon the same amount plus credits for the new editions. Nita complained and haven’t heard back from press council (look how good is that).
This is not simply whining. Even though we have fought it in our own ways, it is also important to make a noise about it and get the attention of the ignorant people.
September 28th, 2008 at 11:37 am
TOI stole my entire blog post 3 months back and published it verbatim.
September 28th, 2008 at 11:45 am
[...] fellow contributor Jo has complied a list of plagiarism incidents by media. Linked by mridula. Join Blogbharti facebook [...]
September 28th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Priyan, did you get in touch with them about it? Which post of yours was copied by them? Do you have a link to both? If so, please share.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:17 am
Spreading the word: lets do it together.
http://sudiptachatterjee.blogspot.com/2008/09/wake-up-bloggers.html
Please spread the word and post on 2nd October.
October 2nd, 2008 at 3:55 am
[...] find their work within the pages of this otherwise porn tabloid passing off as news. These reports are only from a few bloggers who’ve been able to spot it in India but the scale of this theft and [...]
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:20 am
[...] find their work within the pages of this otherwise porn tabloid passing off as news. These reports are only from a few bloggers who’ve been able to spot it in India [...]
March 4th, 2009 at 5:31 am
[...] to supplement their story, violating the rights of the photographers are surfacing everywhere now. Citizens who now see their work published without any credit, not to mention monetary compensation, [...]
July 29th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
TOI published a clarification in my case. But I realize such incidents continue to happen.
February 2nd, 2010 at 11:43 am
These people are so lame.
I walked into a store and to my surprise found a picture of mine used by some magazine called ‘explocity’. They have some standard disclaimer to email them about copyright infringements, I mailed them yesterday, lets see if they get back.