Sydney Morning Herald – What’s up?

Errr… Anyone heard of Creative Commons Noncommercial? Maybe someone involved with copyright there at the Sydney Morning Herald perhaps? I like how they say, “a selection of our readers’ photographs” — very sly. This both indicates that they have legions of readers and that all the photographs are from these adoring legions. I just checked my doorstep here in Queenstown, New Zealand. Nope, I don’t see the Sydney Morning Herald there.

My license, which is quite generous and clear on the site says noncommercial. Now, I know newspapers are commercial, even though they are hemorrhaging money as people flock online to get more timely news and better photos (which, apparently, they are doing too for content-mining). So, the commercial use is definitely a no-no.

But in worse form, I think it’s a bit rude not to give credit down there towards the bottom of the photo. Instead, they used that valuable space to indicate that “oh we’re just one big community with ‘our readers’ who take these pics for fun.” Oh no, I didn’t pay thousands of dollars to fly to your country and stay in a hotel and buy camera equipment so I could take photos of your duck to adorn your newspaper. /said in the voice of Tim from The Holy Grail when he said “I warned you, but did you listen to me? Oh, no, you *knew*, didn’t you? Oh, it’s just a harmless little *bunny*, isn’t it?”

(thanks for the tip off on Google+ from Daniel Shortt.)

Speaking of Copyright Infringement…

I saw a comment on Google+ from CNET reporter Lexy Savvides

Hilariously timed +Trey Ratcliff given that the SMH [Sydney Morning Herald] last week recently posted pieces on photographers having content stolen. See this article?

Looks like it was used online too, littered with revenue-generating ads…

Good person “Dawnstar Australis” sent me this tweet that it is also being used online (image):

@dawnstarau: @TreyRatcliff Incidentally here’s the digital copy of the article with your image front and centre – http://bit.ly/VVQ4po

Harlan Ellison says it better than I could (and funnier!) This is the famous Harlan Ellison, who I first came to know through his work on Babylon 5, but he’s also won the Hugo Award over nine times! It’s great to see him go off… I’m sure many photographers will really enjoy hearing him get angry! 🙂 Thank you to good man Matt Fangman who left this video link below.

Update…

There has since been an article on another Australian media outlet by Nic Christensen where he got in contact with the editor of the SMH.