Hande isn’t alone in his frustration. Inevitably, complainants have raged for weeks against a tide of rebuffs before they got anywhere. Priyanka Sachar, who blogs as the Twilight Fairy, sought restitution for three months after The Times of India published her Flickr photo of yellow amaltas flowers.
When she blogged about the incident, her post received more than 130 comments, a number of them claiming, in angry solidarity, to have gone through similar experiences.
The woman whom she finally talked to “initially apologized and said it wasn’t intentional, which sounded like a lame excuse”, Sachar says. Later she was offered a compensation of Rs250 and then raised it to Rs1,500.
“She said if it wasn’t enough, the matter would have to go to the legal department,” said Sachar.
To Sachar, that sounded like a threat. She consulted a few lawyers and began publicizing the incident online. “Only then did they call me back and agree to my demanded fee of Rs10,000,” she says. “I’ve noticed this is happening with alarming regularity now.”
The Hindustan Times, which is published by HT Media Ltd, has also faced similar allegations. For instance, Archana S.R., a Bangalore-based photographer, blogged last month that a Mumbai supplement of the Hindustan Times had reproduced her photo of an eco-friendly Ganesha idol, without permission.
“We would not tolerate any infringement of copyright, be it infringement on the part of our journalists or someone else infringing on (our) copyright,” says Sanjoy Narayan, recently appointed editor-in-chief of the Hindustan Times. “There is a need for greater awareness all around about the sensitivity of copyrights. Digital media is relatively new in India, and sometimes people don’t realize that creative work online is also published under copyrights.”
Mint, which is also published by HT Media, has specific guidelines for its staff on both text and photos as part of its Code of Conduct, which says: “We don’t copy the work of others… We do not plagiarize, meaning that we do not take the work of others and pass it off as our own.” (The full Code is available on Mint’s website, www.livemint.com.)
Palash Ranjan Bhowmick, photo editor at the Business India, admits that he understands the constraints and complexities that photo desks work under in this age of rapid journalism.
“Often we’re told suddenly: ‘We need a photo for this story.’ And downloading a photo is so easy and cost-effective, so it’s tempting,” he says. “But I’m against this downloading business entirely. I’m pretty upset at what has become the order of the day.”
Under Web standards developed by the non-profit Trade of Commons International, a licence of “Creative Commons” allows a photo to be reproduced with due attribution, but authors can also insist that it be used without modification and for non-commercial purposes.
Another legal doctrine, “fair use”, or “fair dealing” as it is known in India, comes into play only if there are few alternatives and if use of a copyrighted photo undermines its potential market.