The good news is you still own your photographs

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.

The Orphan Works legislation that we looked at last month would make it feasible for publishers to use copyrighted materials with impunity after making little more than a token effort to reach the author for permission and licensing.

Presumably distracted by their looming election most MPs didn’t bother to show (did yours?), and the government won 189 votes to 47 securing the Bill’s passage through the committee stage of the law making process, but not before Clause 43 containing the Orphan Works legislation was dropped – thanks to the work of these guys.

This is an important victory because — have no doubt — publishers all over the world would have been unleashing their lobbyists on governments right now had Clause 43 become an available precedent.

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Meanwhile the American Society of Media Photographers is suing Google, claiming the search engine’s ongoing book digitisation programme amounts to copyright infringement, and is seeking damages and an injunction.

Google is still dealing with a 2005 lawsuit that saw it settle for a reported $US125 million including further conditions that bring ongoing revenue to the publishers involved.

wade@wadelaube.com

www.twitter.com/wadelaube

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• Photo-phobia and its unintended consequences
• Orphan Works Bill is the copyright thief’s get out of jail free card