US photo agency files copyright suit against Daily Mail
Posted by sim-o
November 14th, 2011
The Daily Mail have, allegedly, been nicking photos again. And the owner of the photos is not happy. Really, they are in fact $1.5 million not happy…
Florida based celebrity photo agency Mavrix have filed suit against the British newspaper for multiple copyright infringements, and are seeking statutory damages of $150,000 per infringement. With up to 10 images involved the total sought comes to $1.5m plus attorney’s fees and “any such other and further relief as the Court may deem just and appropriate”.
Marvix seem to have got a court in the California to issue proceedings against the Daily Mail, where compensation for this sort of thing is higher than in the UK because, although the Mail is a UK company, it has substantial connections to the the US, namely:
- They have a bureau in Los Angeles
- A print version of the Mail is made available for sale in California
- According to traffic monitoring companies 2.8 million visitors a month are from the US
- The Mail is published by Associated Newspapers Ltd, which is part of Daily Mail and General Trust Plc. DMGT is a “multi-billion dollar publicly traded media conglomerate entity that operates in over 40 countries, including the United States” with “facilities at the California Market Center, Los Angeles” and Ass. Newspapers and DMGT “are all part of the same entity, do not enjoy seperate corporate structure and function as one common enterprise and/or as alter egos of each other”.
The court documents (.pdf) also state…
the Daily Mail, with the assistance of its online picture editor, Elliot Wagland, has “a history of copyright piracy conduct. Indeed, the pattern and practice of Defendants is to ignore the demand of photo agencies or photographers to agree to rates before use and to simply take the pictures and use them without compensation or to then offer token compensation.
Could this be the case that has an affect on the behaviour of the Mail?
h/t @waxnip
You’d like to think so but I doubt it. They’re so arrogant about stealing online content and blatant plagiarism, whether that be stories from blogs or forums or pictures, or plagiarism of other News Papers like the LA Times. Not only do they not ask permission they also don’t give a standard credit, but to steal outright without paying for the content, WTF?
What makes them think they are above the law?
Why do they think this behaviour is acceptable?
This is the same organisation that complains about Google stealing it’s stories, even though Google drives so much traffic to its site because of the Mails blatant hit whoring tactics.
effect, not affect
“Could this be the case that has an affect on the behaviour of the Mail?”
Fuck that, I hope it’s the case that gets the rag shut down in disgrace like the NOTW.
FWIW, Alistair Campbell who I have very little time for, has today told the Leveson inquiry precisely what he thinks about the tabloids – and get this – the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre and the PCC are all mentioned.
Perhaps the this disgraceful rag’s days are finally numbered. I can dream.
Be fair, they do pay for some content: “The Daily Mail checks that people in paparazzi shots have not been harassed before running the photos, the Leveson Inquiry into the media has been told.”. So that’s OK then. But note from today’s issue, that if you lose your phone the Mail will feel entitled to publish any pics on it without even asking you.
“Ass. Newspapers”
Greatest abbreviation ever.
The hilarious thing is that the Mail is generally in favour of pro-content-owner legislation that would clamp down on this sort of thing. I wonder if we’ll detect a shift in the Mail’s attitude to copyright when it becomes clear that the Mail’s own ‘common sense journalistic standards’ are themselves viewed as ‘copyright piracy conduct’?