Electronic ethics of photography

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Jan, 1990 by Liz Horton

Electronic ethics of photography

New York City--In the age of electronic images, new legal pitfalls yawn before desktop publishers. To avoid missteps, they need to learn the basics of copyright law, says Richard Weisgrau, the executive director of the American Society of Magazine Photographers.

What they need to know is simple, says Weisgrau: Don't use an image without permission.

Potential problems arise in two areas: unauthorized use of images, made possible by cheap desktop scanners and computer networks that make it easy to download images; and unauthorized electronic compositions, the fruit of computer programs that can combine and edit images and output original-quality transparencies. The equipment available today allows just about anyone to use or change a work of art cheaply and without authorization.

"The technology makes it easy for the unknowledgeable public to violate the author's copyright," says Weisgrau.

Basically, copyright law says that, barring a written agreement to the contrary, the author of a work owns the copyright from the point of creation. He or she owns title and absolute control over use of that image or work. This means that any desktop publishing use of another's image--scanning it into a computer, electronically merging it with another image or disseminating it on a computer network--requires permission.

Large publishing companies pose little problem, says Weisgrau. "Time won't scan in a photo; the quality isn't high enough." And when companies do sophisticated electronic editing of images, they are generally aware of the legal issues. That is not always so for desktop publishers, who are harder to police because of their numbers.

As artists' physical control over an image decreases, they are reporting more and more "horror stories," says Paul Basista, national executive director of the Graphic Artists Guild. He cites the case of a prominent illustrator who was recently advised by a friend that one of his works had appeared on a nationally accessible computer bulletin board. On checking, the illustrator found that not one but five of his images had been scanned in. His name and the copyright notice had been cropped away. By the time he protested, 240 people had downloaded the images.

Besides causing financial and creative harm, such unauthorized use could damage the artist's reputation. If an image is manipulated but the style is still representative, "someone could say, 'Oh, I see so-and-so's doing shoddy work these days. I remember when he was really good,'" says Basista. This can be devastating in a business in which "you're only as good as your last job."

Publishers should be especially receptive to these arguments, says Weisgrau, because their own works are protected by copyright law.