Tuesday 21 February 2017

Theft of intellectual property: Fair Dealing in Canada

Michael de Adder:
"I did not grant this publication 
the right to use my work." 
I have written about this topic a lot. The 'Shirtless Trudeau' photo was a recent issue in Canada, whereby people stole this professional photographer's photo. The photographer did not want to sell the photo, it was special to her, she refused to sell it. Then writes:
"I was not impressed that many of the same news agencies that requested permission for use, took the photo and used it anyways."
<= This is a screen shot of a small paper. The editor has used the cartoon of one Michael de Adder. I contacted the paper to ask if they paid de Adder or The Hill Times, where the cartoon was originally published. It has spread like wildfire on the Internet.

It so bothers me that Doppler does not have permission to use Michael de Adder's cartoon, that I ordered one of Adder's books to compensate him. This is wrong. It is immoral and illegal.
This does not fit in with the Fair Dealing laws. You can quote snippets, but you cannot use an entire photo without permission.
I contacted the paper:
Me: I was wondering if you paid Adder to use his cartoon on the Trudeau article?
The editor said,
"No we did not pay Adder for the cartoon, but we did credit the Hill Times. 
The cartoon is making the rounds and complements Dale’s piece perfectly. I know that doesn’t put food on the table for Adder but hopefully it raises his profile. 
At Doppler we have had other news organizations pick up our photos without attribution. If I notice I send off a friendly email asking for credit. They usually comply. "

It might have raised his profile if they had instead embedded a Twitter link (see below), or a link to his books, or the original cartoon. The editor did not.

Fair Dealing in Canada

Fair dealing is a statutory exception to copyright infringement. It is a defence, with the burden of proof upon the defendant. To qualify under the fair dealing exception, the dealing must be for a purpose enumerated in sections 29, 29.1 or 29.2 of the Copyright Act of Canada (research, private study, education, parody, satire, criticism or review and news reporting), and the dealing must be fair.

Effect of Fair Dealing on the Work
A dealing which competes with, or is a substitute for, that of the copied work is unlikely to be fair: “If the reproduced work is likely to compete with the market of the original work, this may suggest that the dealing is not fair.”[42] 



  • if you link back to the source and list the photographer's name
  • if the picture is not full-sized
  • if you did it innocently
  • if your site is non-commercial and you made no money from the use of the photo
  • if you didn't claim the photo was yours
  • if you've added commentary in addition to having the pic in the post
  • if the picture is embedded and not saved on your server
  • if you have a disclaimer on your site
  • if you immediately take down a pic if someone sends you a DMCA notice (you do have to take it down, but it doesn't absolve you.)


Then there was a video clip a Barrie TV station stole from me and used on air: YouTube, Copyright & Public Domain

NO PINNING: Here is why...

2 comments:

Anvilcloud said...

Newspapers should play by the rules, even if it is difficult for the smaller ones especially. But I can see the temptation when an image is all over the internet.

William Kendall said...

You'd think a news agency would know better.