I was just reading a PDN Pulse post about San Francisco photographer Ken Light. Ken won a judgment in February against Al Gore’s cable TV network Current TV for unauthorized use of an image. But Current TV has appealed a small claims court award to Light of $500 plus $88 in court costs for unauthorized publication of a 1994 image of Texas death row inmate Cameron Todd Willingham.
Current TV downloaded the photograph off the New Yorker website and published Light’s portrait of Willingham on its website without permission, but is balking at paying up claiming news photographs are free to use under “fair use” which is not the case.
Al should know better. His wife Tipper was a news photographer for the Nashville Tennessean until he was elected to the Senate in 1976. Tipper definitely knows better. Tipper have a talk with your husband.
This is an inconvenient case. Pay up, Al.
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I agree that the photog is in the right and the network in the wrong, but people keep acting like Al Gore is one who’s making these decisions himself. He probably has zero control over what’s going on in this case. Sounds like the lawyer and whoever decided to run the photo in the first place are the one’s that should know better.
I’m certain Al could end this with a phone call. Pay the photographer.
It would not surprise me if this is a test by the lawyers to see how far they can go at changing, or at least altering the interpretation of copyright laws. There has to be a reason behind them willing to fight this in court over a measly $588. I think it’s more an issue of a corporation trying to set a precedent on issues of taking people’s work without paying for it.
Absolutely right, Tim. It’s about not about not paying this time. It’s about not paying for photography…ever…