Whoops! Photographers’ Gallery drops a bollock.
Written by Ciara Leeming“It was on a late summer stroll through London that my friend passed by The Photographers’ Gallery, where he saw a beautiful woman sitting inside the newly renovated street level café. There she was, alone with a book, stroking her long, jet-black hair. A cup sat within hand’s reach but empty; it’s her stare that lasts. But this wasn’t a real woman, a real book, or a real café. At least, not in London. What my friend saw was a photograph I made more than two years prior and half a world away. My friend shot me a quick note in his surprise. It read:
John, have you agreed for The Photographers’ Gallery to use this picture of yours?”
You can probably see where this is heading. The answer was no they hadn’t – the gallery (well, to be fair, the architects refurbishing the gallery) had nabbed photographer John Goldsmith’s rather beautiful photo off Flickr and infringed his copyright in quite a major way. Read the full story over here.
Discussion (8 Comments)
Hey, I’m sure those nice architect fellows wouldn’t mind if someone used any of their ideas, creations or constructions without license or compensation…
Maybe John can go down there with posters of his work and completely paste and cover the entire gallery storefront with his imagery- the gallery has already proven they don’t really care. And that being the fact, maybe everyone should do that! It would probably go down as the their best contribution to photography and the public.
That’d never work Stan because no-one knows about this, NO-ONE, don’t you see?
Bloody Hell!
Get yourself a damn good lawyer and sue their arses!
My mantra for this one is ‘Show me the Money!’
Goodluck John and well done Joni Karanka for being onto it!
That’s unbelievable. They really should know better!
Thanks so much for carrying my story, duckrabbit. And thanks everyone for your support and retweets. And Joni is awesome!
@Lisa. I had a good lawyer but going to court requires an upfront expense that I just don’t have. Since the architects ignored us, my only option was telling my story.
No need to be thanking us John. Get yourself a good lawyer, as suggested in the replies to your post, try http://www.ipprotection.net/.
Also, collate evidence of the extent and duration of image use, then simply bill the gallery/architect, depending on your legal advice. Such a shame that
a situation such as this has not been quietly resolved, as it so easily could be. I sure hope the gallery step up and do the right thing. If you need further help with the legal side just let us know. Best of luck.
David, true in the fact that it would have been easy to avoid. The architects could have used stock images, or could have asked photographers for their permission. Even when John was contacting the gallery, the gallery could have joined him in the anger against the architects. Don’t know… almost anything could have been done that would have been better than this, which is rather sad. Fingers crossed that a reasonable solution and apology is found. The architects in Ireland have today stated they know nothing about this and are waiting for The Photographers’ Gallery to release a press statement. Everybody just seems to be projecting a pretty bad public image, could they just stop screwing it up?
@ John – The image licensed under © All Rights Reserved, so the architects shouldn’t ignore you. A few years back, my ex-employer a travel magazine publication – had to pay out around 10K to a Brighton-based photo agency for this same scenario. We were allowed discretionary use of one image for a travel title. Due to poor housekeeping, and junior writers who were ignorant of copyright law (most of them still are), the image got passed on to a client who used it an advert. It appeared on London Metro newspaper, circulated to millions of tube commuters. My ex-employer acknowledged this error and paid up without much fuss (Of course the editors got a huge bollocking after). You deserve an explanation, John. Good luck.