{"id":1266,"date":"2011-03-07T12:27:50","date_gmt":"2011-03-07T12:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=1266"},"modified":"2011-03-07T12:27:50","modified_gmt":"2011-03-07T12:27:50","slug":"empty-cup-at-photographers-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=1266","title":{"rendered":"Empty Cup at Photographers Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanks to Jeremy Nicholl<\/em> who writes the Russian Photos Blog<\/a> which I’ve often linked to here for a Tweet mentioning
\nEmpty Cup: A Case of Copyright Infringement,<\/a> posted by Vancouver based John Goldsmith on his blog. Goldsmith is a freelance photographer\u00a0 and currently has work in the Format festival<\/a> in Derby. (This year seems very much the year of street photography with another festival in London and the show at the Museum of London<\/a>; but too much is happening on the streets for me to photograph for me to find the time to get to Derby.)<\/p>\n

I won’t go into detail about the Goldsmith article, as you should go and read it, but it involves the unauthorised use of his picture showing a woman in the window of a coffee shop reading a book by the Photographers’ Gallery<\/em> and the architects O’Donnell + Tuomey<\/em>\u00a0 responsible for the\u00a0 rebuilding of their premises (see my Zombies in Ramilees St<\/a>.)\u00a0 Goldsmith registered his copyright at the US Copyright Office\u00a0 and posted the picture on Flickr where it quickly became one of Goldsmiths most popular images with “14,737 views to date.”<\/p>\n

So far all he has received have been very unsatisfactory responses from both parties, with the PG director expressing some concern but passing the buck to the architects – despite the picture concerned having been displayed very large in the gallery window (where someone saw it and told Goldsmith) – and the architects refusing to accept any responsibility despite having made the image available to various magazines and web sites which published it.<\/p>\n

I don’t know if Goldsmith belongs to a union or professional association, but had a similar situation occurred with one of my own pictures I would be pleased that I was a member of the union, who would support me in a legal case and I would expect to get a very welcome financial settlement. No reason why he should not do so without such support, but professional advice and support does make such things easier – and would almost certainly result in a faster and more beneficial result.<\/p>\n

It’s an image that reminds me of pictures by Walker Evans,<\/em> a man with a great love of windows, and indeed of others by various photographers over the years (even I think some of mine) but is a fine image, and I remember seeing it on the ‘Londonist<\/em>‘ web site and thinking how inappropriate it was to be used in a feature about a gallery that over the past years has avoided photography of this genre like the plague.\u00a0 Of course, I suspect with it’s new-found high profile (and impressive audience figures at the Museum of London show) that if the PG were up and running it too would be jumping on the street bandwagon.<\/p>\n

Back on the Russian Photos Blog, Dear Photographers, Lady Gaga Wants The Copyright On Your Work. Oh, And By The Way, So Do We<\/a> makes interesting reading on a related topic, although I think the answer is simply to stop photographing ‘celebrities’ of all kinds. But I suppose some photographers need the money, and it is about all some publications use these days.\u00a0 Frankly I’d rather do weddings, which I think generally offer rather more scope for creative photography. Though I’ve only done three and none as a paying job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks to Jeremy Nicholl who writes the Russian Photos Blog which I’ve often linked to here for a Tweet mentioning Empty Cup: A Case of Copyright Infringement, posted by Vancouver based John Goldsmith on his blog. Goldsmith is a freelance photographer\u00a0 and currently has work in the Format festival in Derby. (This year seems very … Continue reading Empty Cup at Photographers Gallery<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photo-issues","category-photographers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}