AP Gets Photos Pulled From Criticism Blog

A site that criticizes photojournalism has gone into text-only mode after getting a letter from the Associated Press threatening legal action.

Snapped Shot, a blog largely devoted to finding supposed bias in news coverage from the Middle East, had a habit of posting wire photos and writing commentary about them. That all changed over the weekend. In a post Saturday, blogger Brian C. Ledbetter said he received a letter from AP corporate counsel Priti H. Doshi telling him he was infringing on the AP's copyrights. The Feb. 28 letter, which Ledbetter posted on his site, said in part:

"Under the Copyright Act no exemption exists for the use of AP images in the manner you are using the images. This use is precisely the type of use that is validly licensed by other news and blogger sites. As such, the AP is entitled to compensation for unauthorized reproduction and public display of all AP's images displayed on the Website. Until you obtain a proper license, you must immediately cease and desist from further reproducing or displaying any AP's images. ... AP treats copyright infringement as a serious matter and is fully prepared to commence legal action to protect its intellectual property rights in its news stories."

In a post today, Ledbetter says advice from other bloggers convinced him to comply with the AP's request. He says he has resolved the matter with the AP by removing all the images from his blog for now.

Had Ledbetter decided to fight the AP, things could have gotten very interesting. I wasn't familiar with Snapped Shot until this weekend, but I can see why it got on the AP's nerves. It tended to post large numbers of AP photos, sometimes with just a few words of commentary, and leave them up indefinitely. The site's venom-spitting nastiness toward photographers and editors surely did it no favors.

On the other hand, in my quick perusal of the site's archive, all the images I saw were displayed in the context of a critique. You could argue this is fair use. Lots of Web sites (including this one) will run photos they do not have permission to display as part of a commentary about the photos.

What do you think? Was Snapped Shot fair use, or did it cross the line?

Comments

[Brian L.]

Daryl,

Thank you very much for your extremely fair writeup of my predicament!

I will say this: In the past two years of blogging, I have learned a *lot* about photojournalism and photojournalists that has caused me to back off significantly from some of the vitriol I threw at the profession early on. I've even grown to become acquaintances (though definitely not "friends") with a small group of wire photographers that are actually out in the field...

That's not to say that I'm always happy with the coverage that the wires gives to issues that are close to me, but I've definitely come to appreciate "the process" a lot more over the years.

And all in all, I can say without reservation that this past weekend has been one of the best learning experiences I've ever had!

(As an aside, I do hope to get some of my legitimate "fair use" illustrations back online shortly, but will be taking things slowly and conservatively for hopefully obvious reasons...)

Respectfully yours,
Brian Ledbetter

[Cletus]

definitely fair use. snapped shot was just one of the few blogs that criticized them (a whole lot, too)