You just finished your article. Then you realize that you forgot to snap a photo. Don’t try and pull something off the internet, experts say, to avoid lawsuits and heavy fines.
One unnamed student media group mentioned in a Student Press Law Center (SPLC) post how they faced repercussions after using a Creative Commons image of a medical syringe in a COVID-19 story. The website required the image to be properly attributed, but the group didn’t read the license requirement, which calls for linking to a specific page on the photographer’s website and including licensing terms in the photo’s file credits. The media group failed to do this, leading to a hefty $5,000 fine.
SPLC can help student journalists across the country make sure they avoid legal troubles, even when they forget to take a picture themselves. It’s a legal organization that works exclusively with student journalists, defending and expanding their free press rights since its founding in 1974. Services include legal help, training, advocacy and public awareness.
Jonathan Gaston-Falk, a staff attorney at SPLC, thinks his organization’s work fills an invaluable role since student journalists typically don’t have attorneys to contact, unlike media professionals.
“Typically, there is a team of attorneys working behind any sort of media outlet who can monitor as things go out if they’re going to be problematic in some way legally. And student journalists don’t have that,” said Gaston-Falk in an interview.
It can be easy to break copyright law, he said. Students usually want to take the ‘quick and easy’ route — Googling an image that runs alongside their article — but many of them don’t understand the copyright laws behind each image, or even what copyright is.
Gaston-Falk highlighted who owns photos, and likened republishing a picture without a person’s permission to stealing their neighbor’s car. While it’s standard journalistic practice to put in a photo caption and say who the photographer is, it doesn’t necessarily satisfy your obligations under copyright law. You also can’t go up to a neighbor’s red car and paint it green, he explained, like how journalists can’t edit preexisting photos because it’s a copyright violation.
Getting permission is key. If you can’t secure it, it’s time to look for workarounds, said Gaston-Falk. For example, anything produced by the federal government is fair to use without notice. It’s like taking the public bus across town instead of stealing your neighbor’s car, as he put it.
Several student journalists in the crowd asked about artificial intelligence. Gaston-Falk pointed out that in the case Thaler v. Perlmutter, it was ruled that copyright only protects work created by humans and not by AI. However, all rulings regarding this technology are new, and journalists should be cautious about the legality of AI.
Regardless, it’s important for student journalist to remember that taking a picture and crediting someone is not as simple as pressing “upload,” Gaston-Falk stressed. The best way to avoid a pesky lawsuit is to try to take a picture of yourself.
“The moment that you snap that shutter button for your camera is the moment that your copyright exists,” Gaston-Falk said, “and that you can take that to the bank — or to court.”