Photo rights for journalism students: a cautionary tale
Using Creative Commons licensed images is a way for journalism students to illustrate written articles for free. But they must follow the rules — or the lesson could be expensive.
I run undergraduate journalism courses in the UK, and I’m careful to ensure that one of the first lessons our students learn is all about copyright. We teach them how to source images they can use, lawfully and for free.
So, it was disappointing to receive a recent email from a “service for online image protection” with an invoice attached. It asked us to pay £300 for the historical use of their client’s photo on our student website. When we checked it out, it became apparent that we’d got off lightly, and there was very little we could do but pay up or face litigation.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Doing the rights thing
Digital media production has made it easy to cut and paste written content from websites. Most students realise that taking other people’s words is wrong (even if they don’t know the particular regulation that makes it wrong).
What is more difficult to explain is that the majority of images online have usage restrictions too. When you create a photograph, you own the copyright. That means you have the exclusive right to use…
