Last Friday evening it was pointed out to me that there was a very nice picture of marram grass at Ainsdale in that day’s Southport Visiter. Out of curiosity I took a look. It looked familiar and so despite knowing that I hadn’t, I felt that I had to check out my Flickr pages to see if I’d posted something to the wrong group. I hadn’t, but on closer inspection I found that it was a poorly reproduced and cropped version of one of my very recent images! The cropping removed my branded Dune Prints logo!
At no point did the Trinity Mirror Group or any of its subsidiaries actually ask my permission to publish my image. Having put the ball in their court this morning I am waiting to hear what they will do about this breach of copyright.
Just in case you haven’t seen it, this is how the image was meant to look:
It’s disgraceful that someone in the local media thought that this was acceptable. Especially to manipulate the image to remove the watermark for printing. Why they couldn’t contact you to ask permission & give you credit I don’t know. It’s not exactly hard to find the owner of an image through Flickr.
I normally submit my images to the Liverpool papers & it pleases me no end when they get used. They always strive to inform the photographer that it’s going to appear in print too. Have you heard back from the Southport Visitor yet?
Update: After me calling them and making representation regarding copyright law and useage without permission the Trinity Mirror Group have offered me a token payment to cover the cost of their use of this image. I have promised to pass the payment (when it arrives) to a local charity.