The Daily Mail knowingly and commercially used my photos despite my denying them permission.

A few days ago, I snapped a picture in The GAP on Oxford Street: their ALWAYS SKINNY mannequins' legs are not only always skinny, but anorexically/starved so.

I tweeted it, and TwitPic'd one picture. Then Cory BoingBoing'ed it. Then the WashPo emailed, asking permission to reprint, and asked for a quote or two. I said yes. I sent them a further pic, too.

Then the Daily Mail got in touch. Could we use the photos, they said. I said, yes, if you donate £250 - a standard photo fee in my book, certainly less than what Getty can charge, say - to a charity of my choice. I don't like the Daily Mail, and didn't want to give them commercial use of my pictures for free.

*On Behalf Of *Alice Taylor
*Sent:* 14 August 2011 06:48
*To:* Ariel Ramerez <Ariel.Ramerez@mailonline.com>
*Subject:* Fwd: Fwd: skinny model pix

Hi Ariel,

I can't give the Daily Mail permission to use 
these pictures conmercially, for free.

I'm happy to licence the Daily Mail a commercial 
usage if it donates a standard picture fee (£250+) 
to a charity of my choice however.

Best!
Alice.

They came back and said, too expensive: 

On 14/08/11 22:16, Ariel Ramerez wrote:

Hello Alice,
Thank you for getting back to me. Appreciate it. 
We are the MailOnline - the web portion. 
Unfortunately, your listed price far exceeds our 
budget - which also comes in $. We'd be happy to 
make the donation however we would need it to 
meet our budgetary constraints.

Please let me know.
Best,
Ariel Ramerez

...to which I said, oh well - sorry, then it's no. (The Daily Mail can afford the photo fee - and if it doesn't want to, then I'm not selling it the rights to my photos.)

From: Alice Taylor 
Sent: 15 August 2011 05:28
To: Ariel Ramerez
Subject: Re: Fwd: skinny model pix

Oh well - it's a no then.
(IMHO, obv, the Mail can afford it, and 
I have no love for that paper so
- apols!)
Thanks for the interest tho!

A.

It was acknowledged:

Date:     Mon, 15 Aug 2011 22:46:11
From:     Ariel Ramerez <Ariel.Ramerez@mailonline.com>

Thanks for letting me know.
Best,

Ariel

And then, instead, the Daily Mail then used both my photos - despite being denied permission - lifting them directly from the WashPo, along with the quotes I gave that newspaper, too.

The Daily Mail links neither to BoingBoing, nor to the WashPo, nor indicates my comments were to the WashPo either. Their reporting makes it sound like I talked to them directly.

To add insult to injury, they remove all the linkbacks, present in the WashPo article, to my original tweet, and to Cory's BoingBoing post.

They don't even link to the WashPo article that they lifted the quotes and photographs from.

I've asked the Daily Mail to now pay up for the unauthorised use - and knowing infringement - of these pics. I'm currently requesting 2 x £1000 charitable donations, which I will request go to MIND and ORG.

Updates to come, I'm sure.

UPDATE 1: 16 Aug. 100s of retweets of this post later, but still no response to my email to the DM. Apparently they do this - wilful copyright infringement - rather a lot.

UPDATE 2: 18 Aug. Yesterday, a picture editor, Stefan Jeremiah based in NYC - got in touch over the phone. We had bad reception and my kid was present, so the call was only semi-completed and we agreed to continue this discussion (my original preference) in writing via email.

Stefan first explained it was "human error", to which I replied, "I thought you'd say that". (It's their only defense, except it turns out, the Daily Mail has a history of unauthorised use of people's works. Replies to my tweets on this matter back this up - many replies from folks claiming the DM have done similar to them.)

Stefan then said the Daily Mail was willing to pay the originally-requested charitable donation of £250. I replied absolutely not, I'm not willing to go back to that since the current offer (offer, mind) was £1000 per photo, for MIND and ORG each. He agreed to that fee immediately, and I said, let's take this back to email. There have since been reports that this matter has been settled amicably, but it hasn't: I haven't agreed anything yet.

I've written back and pointed out three things:

1. The DM does this regularly (see also the comments on this post!) and needs to sort its house out. The "human error" excuse doesn't wash.

2. The attempt to only pay the original one-off £250 fee was extremely bad faith. This money is for charity!

3. The original offending article is still not linking back to any of the originating sources of both the photos, the comments or the story, at 07:16gmt on 18 August: no links to the Washington Post, nor to BoingBoing. A small (c) @wonderlandblog points out on the photos that the pictures are under my copyright - true - but still the DM does not have permission to use them, commercially, for free. The pictures have been there for 4 days.

I've now suggested that the DM identify an appropriate amount per picture for each daily, unauthorised use, to be donated to the two charities I specified. I'm waiting to see what amount they will suggest is fair and right in this situation.

UPDATE 3: 19 Aug: Silence from the Daily Mail. They're working on something though: they've taken down the page containing the WashPo's work and my photos: it's now a Can't Be Found.

I'm guessing they're getting heat from elsewhere: the British Journal of Photographers has been in touch, along with the WashPo too (their lawyers are on it), plus the NUJ, various copyright bodies, other journalists, plus it's been reported everywhere from Gawker to Poynter. Even Conservative MPs have tweeted about it (and the very Conservative Daily Mail can't be liking that).

(Still no word from the GAP either, heh.)

UPDATE 4: 25 August. Total silence. Clearly the Mail either can't work out a figure, can't be bothered, or doesn't want to pay more than £1000 per picture to these charities.

It's relying, I'm sure, on my being too small and too busy running my business to sue the Mail in court in the USA (where they base their picture desk, for some reason). I invoiced them today for £2000, to be paid to MIND and ORG.

2 hours later, I got a super polite email from the Editor of the Mail Online, confirming that they consider £1000 per picture to be a "fair and final offer". So there you have it: they infringe, they wriggle, they use dirty tactics, and then they settle for as little as they can get away with. They will pay that tiny sum, and move on.

I can only hope two things from this: that the Mail rethinks its infringement policy, and that this public record will help any future lawsuits.

What a dishonourable organisation.

Comments

[Squander Two]

Sally,

What Alice did and what The Mail did are not the same thing at all. Alice is writing about The Mail and has used screenshots of The Mail, which she attributes to The Mail, to illustrate that story. That's fair use. The Mail weren't writing a piece about Alice or her website or her photography. Had they written a piece about this page, they could have used a screen grab of it, even including the photo, attributed it correctly, and it would arguably have been fair use. But they didn't. They were writing about Gap. They passed the photo off as their own. What they did was plagiarism.

The difference here is the same as the difference between playing a snippet of a record as part of a review of that record (allowed) and sampling the vocals off of someone's else's record and using them as the main hook in your own record (completely illegal without permission). Do you honestly not see any difference there?

[ToastMaster]

Daily Mail print edition used a handful of images from my Faces in Places blog ( http://facesinplaces.blogspot.com ) a few years ago for a double page spread(!). Didn't contact any of the photographers for permission, or pay a penny. They did print the blog address though.

Some 'old media' businesses do seem to think that anything on the web is free to reprint.

[Phil Bradley]

Gentle_Pursuasion - please don't try and stir. The photograph was quite obviously taken from outside on the pavement and is perfectly legal.

[carl von clausewitz]

good for you! don't take no shit!

too often individuals (literally one or two people at at time) are forced to accept the terms, conditions, agreements, rules, regulations, whims, fancies, choices, actions, etc., of companies, conglomerates, associations, airlines, fast food chains, churches, governments, etc., and do nothing about it.

switch the role here, let's say you "borrowed" something from DM after being denied...i wonder to what "charity" they would like you contribute.

[john]

I would be careful in your dealings with the Daily Mail you may end up with cancer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[Bod for tea]

Grrrr.... good for you for perusing this.

[Tom (iow)]

If you offered a new rate of £1000 per photo to settle the case and this was accepted, you can't then ask for more. But you can certainly now sue for this amount if it is not paid.

[Alice]

To be ultra clear on the "set your own price": they can of course say, our price is £1000 per photo.

I simply pointed out that offer was made BEFORE:

a) they untruthfully told other media outlets that the matter was settled before it was;

b) they continued to use the photographs without permission in the meanwhile, and

c) many, many further examples of similar infringement were coming to light, meaning that they do this all the time.

The offer now is easy: it's a charitable donation, to be set at the rate that they think is fair, given all their behaviours.

Hopefully it's making them think carefully about what they did, and how they do things in the future.

[Mil]

As you're aware from my dance off with the MoS back in the 1840s, Stewie, the most powerful issue on your side here isn't the theft itself; it's that they asked, and you refused, and then they did it anyway, which is called 'flagrancy'. The flagrancy aspect is more serious legally and also knacks the usual excuses of 'We didn't think you'd mind/We thought you'd be overjoyed', 'It's all public domain, surely', etc.

But, as you'll also know, being incandescently in the right is a minor detail in these situations. Actually, your best bet - seeing as it's a Ms 'Ramarez' (what is that? Mexican? Egyptian? Romulan? Whatever is it, I bet it causes cancer) - is probably to write a feature for the DM complaining about 'all these foreigners coming over here and stealing our pictures'. They'll be two weeks into launching a campaign to ban themselves before they pause to check Column A against Column B.

[Webby]

You're a far better person than I - I'd have that money in my own personal bank account before you can say starving African kid.

[Victoria hiley]

The DM lifted a blog post of mine almost word for word a few years ago. I politely asked for a credit. Did I get one? Of course not.

[sadasdas]

Skinny legs always look good, people should stop moaning if they can't stay off the chips.

[Allan Prince]

If everything you've written is true then you have a cast iron copyright infringement case.

The photograph was published by you, you took it. They used it.

Now they don't actually have any say in how much you can ask them to pay for the photos, which is why they're reverting back to the original £250.

If I were you, I'd get a lawyer - at the very least go to a law workshop with trainee lawyers cos this is basic law that they'd really be able to sink their teeth into.

[Peter]

Glad to see you got it resolved Alice, but could anyone clear up the situation of taking photos in a shop (private property) without permission of the owners? Is this legal/gives you the photo rights unless the owner has put up a 'No photography' sign?

[Mark Bowen]

Just came across this post and although a bit late to the thread here I think this is truly disgusting.

First up as far as I can tell from looking at the images posted above they look like they were taken through the shop window?

If so then you are standing on a public highway and are totally within your right to take a photo of whatever you can see through the lens.

Next the DM were in an email conversation with you where you plainly told them that they couldn't use the images and they (although not in direct terms) agreed to that.

That should have been the end of it but the fact that they went and used the images after you had told them they couldn't is absolute admittance of wrong doing.

The papers get away with way too much these days and I for one don't even get a paper delivered as you can find everything you need on the net for free anyway. There are much better ways to find out about breaking stories than from a paper as you have to wait for them to be printed. Very old school if you ask me.

This is plain and simple theft, no other way about it and any wriggling they try to do after the fact just can't be accepted. What if someone breaks into your house and steals items hoping that even with the fact that they definitely did the crime they think that they can try to wriggle out of it in one way or another.

Simply not on!

Would the DM like it if you were to go into their offices and steal 100,000 of their printed papers and sell them on the streets? I don't think so.

Definitely sue them for every penny you can get as it is blatant theft. I know I definitely would.

[Pdolinaj]

I just had a similar problem when DailyMail used my video taken from YouTube to post on their frontpage online. I emailed them and asked to either compensate me or remove the video. They are now offering £50 but isn't this too low? What are your thoughts. How much realistically could I ask? Thank you.