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gill moore photography

Archive for the 'rights' Category

The fight to protect everyone’s right to take photographs continues ….

Published
by
gill moore
on Saturday, April 26, 2008
in Intellectual Property Rights, London, award, blogging, competitions, copyright, culture, freedom, photography, police, politics, prize, rights, uk and websites
. 1 Comment

One of my most popular posts has been regarding photographer’s rights in the UK : “Photography rights grabs, erosion of freedom, the fightback begins and blogging helps.” This topic is moving so fast I think it is worthy of a follow-up post. The Pro-Imaging website now has a separate page dealing with good and bad photography competions. This now makes it incredibly easy to check on which photo competions are just rights-grabs lurking behind the banner of a prize. Pro-Imaging are having good success with raising awareness and making information freely available, often getting some organizations to actually change their Terms and Conditions to something more palatable.

Sadly it is not all good news. The farce that was the “Olympic Torch Relay” took place in London at the start of the month. Inevitably the event was crashed by protestors wanting to focus attention on China and the situation in Tibet. We then saw a heavily guarded Olympic flame; a symbol of peace and unity, being protected by a massive security operation involving 2,000 members of the Metropolitan Police Force bolstered by Chinese security officers.
Regular members of the public and press photographers tried to record the event in pictures and reported some of the most heavy-handed policing seen in the UK for many a year. Quite brutal incidents of physical assaults, some on horseback, sent out quite a sobering picture of how easily rights can be waved aside when the time demands.
This comes on the back of a number of highly reported incidents involving community support officers and the police both seemingly unaware of UK law and challenging people’s legal right to photograph in public places. Austin Mitchell MP for Grimbsy has taken up the baton and tabled an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons condemning police action against lawful photography in public spaces and has urged the Home Office to agree a “photography code” to be drawn up and used by police officers and UK citizens as a guide to what is and isn’t possible for street photography. Click here for a link to the EDM wording in full. The link also lists every MP who has signed the petition, if your local MP hasn’t, then find your local MP and send them an email here.
If you want to show your support for this cause then you can sign a petition on the 10 Downing Street website.
For some links to some of the recent problems affecting members of the public trying to take photographs in public places, then Amateur Photographer has some good links.
And on the EPUK site they have a list of incidents affecting press photographers. Another one here @ photorights.org.
UPDATE : Further discussion on BBC Radio 4 blog on the current confusion regarding the law and photography, also on the Manchester Flickr group regarding contacting their MP’s.

UPDATE : Sept 08. Click here for a link to an excellent online video made by the NUJ (National Union of Journalists) UK regarding the erosion of civil liberties and media freedoms in Britain.
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Free Intellectual Property Advice for creative businesses in Northern England

Published
by
gill moore
on Thursday, April 17, 2008
in IP, Intellectual Property Rights, London, art, artist, business, copyright, event, galleries, learning, links, manchester, photography, rights, talk, uk and workshop
. 0 Comments
Are you based in North or North West of England and work within the creative industries?
Do you want some excellent free advice on Intellectual Property (copyrights, trademarks, patents, and related rights)?
If the answer is YES, you should visit www.own-it.org/north.
Own-It was originally launched online in 2004. Devised by the London Development Agency, it delivers free advice on IP for the creative industries in London. Now they are spreading their wings to create Own-It North and expanding to support creative businesses in the North and North West of England. This is a pilot project, they are testing the water until July 2008.
This is a fantastic opportunity made available due to support from Salford University and the Northern Edge Group of Universities, Skillset NW, and the North West Development Agency.

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Photography rights grabs, erosion of freedom, the fightback begins and blogging helps

Published
by
gill moore
on Friday, March 28, 2008
in London, art, artist, blogging, competitions, copyright, freedom, links, manchester, photography, rights, uk and websites
. 4 Comments
 pi_logo.jpg
In an effort to hold back the tide of rights-grab photographic competitions and to educate those that unwittingly enter them, Pro-Imaging (a UK-based photographers organisation and discussion list) has recently launched a campaign of naming and shaming.  Anyone can submit to the PI website the name of a competition they feel is unfair and PI in turn will investigate.
They have drawn up a Bill of Rights which lists how they feel a photo-competition should be run.   This will be used as a basis to check the Rules of Entry and Terms and Conditions of various submitted competitions.  Already given a black mark are some household names; Adobe, Nikon, Canon, National Geographic, Panasonic and the UK Government … so it seems no-one is too large to be spared.
The campaign has gained a great deal of support on the web and in print, this week the British Journal of Photography reported a recent success of changed T&C’s as a direct result of the PI campaign.
A campaign such as this can only highlight the power of the internet with websites and blogs being a fantastic method of galvanising far-flung individuals who share a common interest and giving them a sense of community and a powerful voice.  Quite by brilliant coincidence the manchesterphotography blog has a great link to an article in the Times which discusses why we need to hang on to our freedom.
This ties in nicely with another big issue gaining much debate at the moment, that of photographers rights to take images in public places.  Ignited in a big way by the Metropolitan Police’s rather provocative campaign asking the general public to become their eyes and ears.  See the posters below, first is the original and underneath a rather humerous counter created by EPUK , another internet-based organisation whose membership is mostly editorial photographers.  See more on their campaign here and here.
metposter.jpgepukposter.jpg 
As if that wasn’t enough for you, check out this link.  Here we have a rather misguided and ill-informed Community Support Officer tackling an innocent street photographer in London recently.  
 

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