Pardon my focus on the Brits of late but they’ve been dealing with a couple of issues that we shouldn’t underestimate the possibility of facing here one day. The Orphan Works legislation may have only just been defeated, but an equally great threat might be just over the horizon.
The UK Parliament has just rushed through its Digital Economy Bill which contained that contentious Orphan Works legislation you may remember, but the good news is campaigning British photographers have achieved a major win for us all.
It appears increasingly likely that Britain will pass into law The Digital Economy Bill 2009-2010 which contains an “orphan works” provision similar to what the Americans faced last year.
Orphan works encompass photographs or other types of intellectual property where, for whatever reason, the original creator cannot be found. The Digital Economy Bill seeks to implement a mechanism whereby publications can go ahead and use them anyway without having received the necessary authority to do so from the copyright holder.
Federal MP Peter Slipper was caught snoozing in the House of Representatives a couple of weeks ago. He was photographed by one of his colleagues on their Blackberry. Slipper, who insists he was just resting his eyes, complained to the Speaker who instigated the inevitable inquiry.
It was a bit unfortunate that this coincided with an address to Parliament by the visiting Indonesian head of state, but if I had to endure the sort of workload our MPs seem to I’d be pretty tired too, I guess.
When the picture was published in a Queensland newspaper a few days later, Slipper wasn’t a happy camper and he told the house he wanted the culprit found.
“I also imagine, Mr Speaker, that it makes it difficult for you to discipline members of the press gallery who might be inclined to breach the rules on photography,” Slipper said.
Whoever did it, they’re in good company because the rules controlling photography in the Federal Parliament are so restrictive they are breached almost as often as anything seriously newsworthy needs to be photographed in that place.
World Press Photo announced recently that photographer Stepan Rudik, who received third prize in the Sport Feature Stories category of the competition, had his award revoked for excessive digital manipulation. Organisers compared one of Rudik’s winning submissions to its RAW file following a complaint from the Ukrainian Photography Union, and he was ultimately disqualified for excising part of a foot and its owner from one of his pictures (compare them here).
While the competition rules are simple enough, and Rudik himself accepts the decision, some dissent evidently exists. The essence of the counter-arguement is a debate over how journalism and artistic license should co-exist; that the final work is the product of the artist’s vision.
But we are of course talking about visual journalism here, not art photography so while it might make for an engrossing debating subject for some, this sort of subversion of the truth simply never flies in professional circles and is the sort of act that has cost its perpetrators their jobs time and time again.
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