Last week, I published my wife Alice’s picture of The Gap’s “death-camp chic” ultra-skinny mannequins. Various newspapers subsequently approached my wife for permission to use the pic, and while she gladly gave permission to the Washington Post, she was much more ambivalent about the awful Daily Mail, a hateful right-wing tabloid that keeps finding new bottoms to scrape.
After some deliberation, Alice told the Mail they could use the pic if they donated £250 to charity. The Mail cried poor and said they couldn’t afford it and Alice bade them good day.
Then the Mail — which makes a practice of threatening bloggers with big copyright lawsuits when their photos and copy are reproduced — just went ahead and ran Alice’s photos, even though they’d asked for, and been denied, permission. They didn’t attribute the photos to her, nor did they link back to her. They didn’t downrez them or use a thumbnail. In other words, they didn’t do anything that militated for a fair use or fair dealing. They just took ’em, for their commercial operation. They even lifted Alice’s quotes to the Washington Post and didn’t attribute them, either.
To add insult to injury, they remove all the linkbacks, present in the WashPo article, to my original tweet, and to Cory’s BoingBoing post.
They don’t even link to the WashPo article that they lifted the quotes and photographs from.
I’ve asked the Daily Mail to now pay up for the unauthorised use – and knowing infringement – of these pics. I’m currently requesting 2 x £1000 charitable donations, which I will request go to MIND and ORG.
Updates to come, I’m sure.
The Daily Mail knowingly and commercially used my photos despite my denying them permission.