Why BuzzFeed Should Pay My Invoice For Copyright Infringement

This happened to a bunch of flickr photographers and me for a Toyota advertising campaign. <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-42743425/toyota-and-saatchi-used-images-from-flickr-without-permission/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cbsnews.com&#x2F;8301-505123_162-42743425&#x2F;toyota-and-s...</a><p>When Toyota&#x27;s ad agency Saatchi was confronted about the misuse, they offered a flat fee of $500 (if I recall correctly ) for each photo. Several of the photographers took the deal. A group of around 10 of us hired a lawyer and settled for much more (withholding amount was part of the deal) per infringement.

Good! I find it depressing how sites like that sponge value off of actual content creators.

And this is an example of one of the many, many reasons why intellectual property in the age of the leviathan state is a terrible idea, terribly executed.<p>As a practical matter you can&#x27;t own public, unencrypted arrangements of bits. All attempts to enforce ownership of public, unencrypted arrangements of bits are forms of rent-seeking or forms of begging or, at the pleasant best, forms of politely asking other people to go along with your view of the world for a while.

BuzzFeed is notorious for STEALING content from other websites. Using pictures without permission isn&#x27;t the only bad thing they are doing. They even copy&#x2F;paste chunks of text verbatim into lists without attribution (For example &quot;13 Things You Probably Didn&#x27;t Know About the Movie &#x27;Clueless&quot; is comprised almost solely of sentences copied from the IMDB trivia page for Clueless, with no sign that they are anything but his own words.). Also their lists are rehashed from other blogs.<p><a href="http://gawker.com/5922038/remix-everything-buzzfeed-and-the-plagiarism-problem" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;gawker.com&#x2F;5922038&#x2F;remix-everything-buzzfeed-and-the-...</a><p><a href="http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2013/03/buzzfeeds-happiest-facts-all-time-were-mostly-plagiarized-reddit/62918/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theatlanticwire.com&#x2F;business&#x2F;2013&#x2F;03&#x2F;buzzfeeds-ha...</a><p><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/06/_21_pictures_that_will_restore_your_faith_in_humanity_how_buzzfeed_makes_viral_hits_in_four_easy_steps_.single.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.slate.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;technology&#x2F;technology&#x2F;2012&#x2F;06&#x2F;...</a>

From the article: &quot;On Slate Jonah Peretti goes on to say ”would love if every image contained some secret metadata and a way to license that image. But the practical reality is that it is pretty challenging“.&quot;<p>Now there&#x27;s an interesting startup idea.

As you mention in your article, copyright infringement is not theft. You have a legitimate claim against BuzzFeed, but don&#x27;t start using the terminology of MPAA&#x2F;RIAA , unless you want to be hated as much as they are.

&quot;As the kids grow up I’ve been collection various “Parent Hacks” were I’ve discovered useful ways of doing things, with the aim of one day producing a “10 Neat Things I Learnt While Being A Parent“. Now one of those things has been splashed all over the internet, which kind of devalues the usefulness of the list I was planning.&quot;<p>The above is the thing I find most amazing. If you are compiling a list so that you can one day produce &quot;10 neat things I learned&quot; etc. then the last thing you should be doing is putting that info <i>anywhere</i> on the internet. The saying that comes to mind is &quot;possession is 9&#x2F;10th of the law&quot;.<p>By posting it online, multiple small parties will potentially take it, spread it around, and you will never have enough legal resources to police it. Effectively it is gone forever.

Am I the only one who think the OP may have overreacted?

BuzzFeed bothers me as much as the next person, but how mad can you really be at BuzzFeed for linking back to the <i>wrong page</i>, according to how you see it, that still contains the original picture and is publicly viewable?

Keep me updated. Really fascinated by your quest to get back the $75 they probably owe you.<p>My god it must be nice to have something like this actually be a problem in your life and make you mad.

In general there are many companies out there who create entire biz models on ripping off photographer&#x27;s photos and compiling them into lists that sit side saddle to paid ads. I have lots of personal experience with this, and if a photographer registers his or her copyright, such companies are very much liable for compensating the artist. These companies know this. Most photographers don&#x27;t notice the infringements or if they do haven&#x27;t registered their images. If more photographers registered, the pool of stolen images would be full of many more legal torpedoes, so to speak, and the companies who are less risk averse would spend the 30 minutes it would take to brainstorm a system for getting images legitimately. (Hint: Cracked.com has accounts with Getty and Corbis. It&#x27;s not that hard.)

I feel your pain. On the plus side, you take great photos and now I&#x27;m aware of your work (I know, I know — doesn&#x27;t do much to help).

This is good to see. Too often the scum at Buzzfeed get away with blatant infringements.

It doesn&#x27;t have to be this way, does it?<p>Yes, if BuffPo were to agree some payment for photo or writing reuse, they&#x27;d have much greater outgoings. However, they&#x27;d also then become legitimate channels for syndication, rather than incidental leeches.<p>I do profess some grim amusement in noticing that serial infringers - the Daily Mail comes prominently to mind - are never punished with anything greater than a nominal fee for whatever work they&#x27;ve lifted. Given these are outfits that are entirely based around profit (rather than simply linking to them in a personal journal, for example, with no money involved), surely the consequences for copyright infringement ought to be amplified, rather than diminished into inconsequentiality?<p>Imagine a BuzzFeed that shared the ad revenue with the creators of the photos involved. It wouldn&#x27;t lead to anyone&#x27;s early retirement, I&#x27;m sure, but we have the means to make such happen, very easily. Shouldn&#x27;t such sites be working toward helping creators be rewarded for what fuels those very sites?

Now in Bulgarian! <a href="http://agronet.bg/agro-news/interesni-novini/874-2009-02-09-06-10-58.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;agronet.bg&#x2F;agro-news&#x2F;interesni-novini&#x2F;874-2009-02-09-...</a> Tineye seems to be out of date, but google image search comes through with a wealth of copies out there.

This guy has a great claim to some payment, anywhere from $500 to $5,000 (or whatever he can settle for). The usage without permission is not in doubt. The case for payment for this type of usage is well-established. The only question is how much. Buzzfeed is in the wrong and they should pay up, pronto.

I asked Jonah about this very thing a year ago. His response was lacking IMO:<p><a href="http://cdixon.org/2012/07/24/buzzfeeds-strategy/comment-page-1/#comment-596874688" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;cdixon.org&#x2F;2012&#x2F;07&#x2F;24&#x2F;buzzfeeds-strategy&#x2F;comment-page...</a>

As an amateur photographer I&#x27;ve actually been in the same boat, but with an unnamed newspaper in the UK, it&#x27;s an interesting process. It&#x27;s also ridiculously common for media companies to use photography without licensing it properly, and whilst I&#x27;ve heard the argument of &quot;don&#x27;t post it if you don&#x27;t want it using&quot; it just doesn&#x27;t work. The world would be a poorer place if creatives felt that they had to sequester their work away to maintain their own rights of control over their product.<p>Plus most of the time if you approach a photographer first you&#x27;re going to get a much better deal than when you&#x27;ve decided that licensing it properly wasn&#x27;t important.

I&#x27;m running into a similar problem with a trademark I hold for my brand (that I created and am developing). People have fast-followed with different (similar) Twitter accounts, but are calling themselves my trademark (thus diluting the brand). The problem is, I reached out to Twitter and they said that these accounts weren&#x27;t in violation. I spoke to a lawyer who referred me to someone else. Should I pursue it further or just be flattered that they are promoting the name? The problem if I do that is that then everyone thinks it&#x27;ll be okay, so the trademark is essentially useless. Any ideas? By the way, some of these accounts have &gt; 400k followers where I only about about 5k.

What was the invoice amount for? You list all those reasons why &quot;it&#x27;s not worth a lot&quot; is not a good argument...so what are you arguing it is worth? I have to say, your &quot;I was going to use it&quot; argument sounds a lot like &quot;I had that idea first&quot; argument for start ups. In the end, buzz feed can just execute with that photo better, your idea (no offense) was never going to touch 4.2MM views.<p>Definitely not saying you necessarily deserve nothing, but what amount did you put in your invoice? Want to know what you think the value is

Well Reverend ... I think your claim has merit but I&#x27;d be interested in knowing what denomination ordained you with language like that. I&#x27;d recommend you avoid curse-words like that in your court filing and in the event you talk with officials involved in your case.

Someone needs to create a new internet where everything that makes it way onto it is automatically Creative Commons &quot;by Attribution&quot;. If you can read it, you can use it (as long as you give credit).

Good luck.

Congrats, buzzfeed! You just made my hosts file.