Another journalist not getting paid
Apr 23rd, 2010 by admin
From Al Gore's website
Here’s a photo of Al Gore at work in his office. I took it from his website, and now await his lawsuit.
A story in today’s New York Times points out how Gore’s cable TV station, Current TV, grabbed a photo off another Web site to use on Current TV. The photo’s owner, an Orinda man, sent Current TV a bill. Instead of paying, Gore’s company sued him in court and won, overturning the photographer’s $588 victory in small-claims court.
Gore and his company must have thought the photo was free because it was already online.
The court and Gore have it wrong. People should be paid for their work, and taking a photo from a website and running on your own is illegal. Or should be. I gave credit to Gore’s site by using the photo above, which is what the photographer wanted in the case of Gore stealing his photo. I now wait to see if Gore will follow his own lawyer’s advice and say it’s OK for me to use his website’s photo without paying Gore.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by aaroncrowe. aaroncrowe said: Go ahead and sue me, Al Gore, for using your website photo without your permission: http://tinyurl.com/237qoke [...]