02.20
A recent Newsosaur post I read talked about Citizen Photojournalism versus “traditional” staff-generated photojournalism.
In a nutshell it talked about the very real situation where amateur shooters like those on Flickr can match if not beat the pros at their own game, a point that no one disputes.
My issue was that his own example raises the same specter that Sion Touhig brings up in his editorial in The Register, namely that “Citizen Journalism” or “User Contributed Content” is often “Audience Stolen Content”.
The example given, that of a Flickr photo vs an SF Chron staff photo, exhibits the very thing Sion Touhig is talking about. The Flickr photo shown is under no specified license, therefore effectively “Copyright, All Rights Reserved”. This means, plain and simple that the proprietor of Reflections of a Newsosaur needed the owner’s permission to run it. Now, I don’t know for sure, but I’m betting he didn’t have it, therefore he stole it.
Oopsie.
So, what we have here the foundations of a counter argument. Sure amateurs from the ranks of sites like Flickr may be able to out-shoot the pros on occasion, but as those same people discover Copyright, will it matter? Once the thrill of being published once or twice passes, will community photojournalism have the same alure when those “community” shooters are sueing you for copyright infringment? Or billing you?
At that point, won’t we be back to the reasons why newspapers have staff photographers in the first place?
