Copyright

By Hilbert Haar

What you read right here is protected by copyright laws. You are not allowed to take it off the internet and use it for another publication without my permission and without paying me for it. It’s a simple rule that is badly understood by the good people at Ultimo Noticia, a Curacao-based newspaper that made a habit of stealing photos made by Dick Drayer, an independent journalist based in Curacao who operates Press Agency Curacao and is maybe best known as the correspondent for the NOS in the Netherlands.

Drayer talked to Ultimo Noticia about their bad habit, he attempted to reach an agreement for compensation, he sent invoices that were never paid. The paper simply kept stealing without paying Drayer for his pictures.

Now the chicken have come home to roost and Ultimo Noticia will have to pay Drayer a bit in excess of 100,000 guilders for its odd behavior.

In May of this year, the Court in first Instance issued an interim-verdict that gave parties some time to find an amicable solution.

But the interim-ruling already made clear that Ultimo Noticia was dead wrong. The paper argued in court that publication of pictures is only wrongful if the person in the photo has a reasonable interest against publication; furthermore, Ultimo Noticia argued: “A free press is very important for a democratic society.”

Even better, the newspaper claimed that a picture online is allowed to be used without permission and without payment for any purpose. Ultimo Noticia even contested that Drayer was the author of the pictures.

The court shoved all those arguments aside, but mediation never happened. That’s why the court ruled on the dispute last Monday – and the outcome offers solid protection to the producers of original photos and original stories.

Ultimo Noticia fielded a rather odd argument: “You are not always the boss of your own creation.”

I can think of only one situation whereby that is true. If you are on the payroll of, say, a newspaper, and one of your jobs is to take pictures, the copyright of those pictures does not belong to you but to the employer, the newspaper.

Ultimo Noticia maintained that the pictures it published were not made by Drayer, that they were not authenticated and that they were not protected by copyright laws. Since the court had already dismissed these arguments, it did not feel the need to repeat itself.

The court awarded Drayer damages for violating his rights related to personality for the numerous pictures the newspaper stole at 150 guilders per picture. For publishing the pictures without Drayer’s permission and without identifying him as the photographer, the court applied the triple damage clause, meaning that Ultimo Noticia also has to pay 450 guilders for each of the photos.

The court furthermore forbade the newspaper to use any of Drayer’s pictures in the future without his permission, under threat of a penalty of 1,000 guilders per violation, with a maximum of 100,000 guilders.

This court ruling is without any doubt a great support for independent producers of photos and (news) stories. Stealing has a price – and in the case at hand it is (if you divide the total amount awarded by the court by the number of stolen pictures) 624 guilders per picture.

Be aware; this court ruling also applies to stories and photos that appear on stmaartennews.com.