Features – Page 3

British Photographic Council concerns over consequences of new copyright law

This is a re-posting from the British Photographic Council’s website. The BPPA is a member of the BPC and members of The BPPA’s Board have been deeply involved in the process so far.
Government adopts “friendless, unnecessary, poorly explained and fraught with risk” new copyright legislation, against united opposition from the photographic sector.
In all of the publicity over the impending introduction of new ‘Orphan Works’ legislation, some of the finer points of proposed changes to copyright legislation have been overshadowed, including Exceptions to Copyright for Private Copying and Quotation and Parody.
These two exceptions went before the House of Lords for debate at the end of July 2014, with none of the concerns having been regarded or addressed by Government Ministers, and despite questions from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments concerning their legality under EU legislation.
These changes have now been approved, threatening seriously to impact photographers many of whom may not even have been aware of these proposals. The government has made these changes through Statutory Instruments, or secondary legislation, rather than being subject to the full scrutiny of parliamentary debate, which accompanies proposed changes to primary legislation.
The most important relate to Copyright Exceptions, which are those recognised exceptions to UK copyright law that allow use of copyright material for education, archiving and similar purposes without breaching copyright. These currently work well and are precisely worded to ensure no ambiguity.
Members of the British Photographic Council have been expressing concern over proposed changes to these exceptions since meeting with the then Minister for IP (Intellectual Property), Viscount Younger of Leckie, over a year ago, and a Joint Position Paper followed. Among the concerns were the proposed changes to the exceptions for Private Copying and for Quotation and Parody. Of particular concern was the ambiguity of the wording and the impracticality relating to how photographs could be ‘quoted’ and the separation of quotation from the previous sensible restriction to criticism and review, leaving its purposes vague and apparently limitless.
The ambiguity in the exceptions will require legal definitions that will be left to the UK courts to decide. There will be a financial impact for photographers both in loss of licensing revenue and in the cost of legal claims and damage to the reputation of photographers, particularly in the area of journalism and current affairs. Further restrictions are needed in the use for Parody & Quotation, to limit the impact of derogatory use. The impact assessments have been clearly done in a ‘one size fits all’ manner, with no consideration to the business models of the photographic sector.
Also approved was the exception for Private Copying with no compensation for rights holders, unlike in Europe where there is a compensatory levy.
We ask the Government where’s the evidence that supports these changes, who did they look to, and are they really striking the right balance for individual creators such as photographers?
The BPC supports concerns over the legality of these draft regulations that have been raised by various bodies such as the British Copyright Council, and our members including BAPLA, NUJ, AOP, BIPP, EPUK, BPPA and Redeye. We believe the Government would be acting ultra-vires if these regulations are implemented as drafted.
The BPC wrote to Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, Lord Clement Jones and Baroness Buscombe outlining these concerns, asking that they reject these proposals so that they can be subjected to the full scrutiny of Parliament via primary legislation.
During the debate Lord Berkeley of Knighton said: “Many people working in the creative industries live on fairly modest means. Their royalties need to be protected—without them, they will find it very hard to survive.”
Lord Scott of Foscote added: “The importance of this is plain. There are a number of individuals who create copyright works on which they rely for their livelihood. They are entitled at the moment to the protection of the law of copyright so that the work they have brought into existence is not taken advantage of by others, without reward for them. The regulations now before the House will have a very serious effect indeed on people of that sort.”
Baroness Morris of Yardley said: “I agree with everyone else who has spoken. I have real doubts about what they will mean for the creative industries.”
Lord Grade commented: “the Government are demonstrating a complete ignorance of the economics of investment in the creative industries. Today’s Motion is yet another example. It is time they tore up the Hargreaves report and listened to the people who make the investments.”
Lord Clement-Jones said: “I am afraid the statutory instruments will pass today, but they are fairly friendless and fraught with the risk of legal challenge. They are badly worded and unnecessary, and they are poorly explained, and the consumer will remain confused.”
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara concluded by saying: “The feeling in the industry is that the battle over these regulations is over and that those affected have been consulted to death but not listened to and, as a result, are simply exhausted. That, more than anything, suggests that the Government have got this completely wrong from beginning to end— although, in fact, I do not think that we have heard the last of these proposals.”
The House of Lords approved the exceptions with scepticism from our supporters. We want to see the Government start the process of a proper impact assessment straight away, working with photographers and their representatives to review the impact it will have over the next year, and ask both Parliamentary Houses to table the review at the earliest in 2015. Surely this approach is the purpose of legislation and the practice of good policy.
The British Photographic Council (BPC) represents over 20,000 photographers via 14 member organisations including trade associations, unions, institutes and networks. They are: Association of Photographers; British Institute of Professional Photography; British Press Photographers’ Association; British Society of Underwater Photographers; Bureau of Freelance Photographers; Chartered Institute of Journalists; Editorial Photographers UK & Ireland; Master Photographers Association; National Association of Press Agencies; National Union of Journalists; Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild; Pro-Imaging; the Royal Photographic Society and Redeye, the Photography Network.
For further information please contact:
Isabelle Doran (BAPLA) on 020 7025 2256
Simon Chapman (NUJ) on 07889 747916
Andrew Wiard (BPPA) on 07973 219201
Denise Swanson (BIPP) on 07973 373657

Check your insurance if you are covering civil disorder stories

Yesterday morning I received a renewal reminder from the company that insures my camera gear. Twenty minutes later I read a posting on a photographers’ discussion forum warning that some of the companies who offer specialist cover for press photographers equipment were saying that they were not going to pay out for equipment stolen, lost or damaged during the recent civil disturbances in London. I put on my “Vice Chairman of The BPPA” hat and got straight on the phone to the company that the association recommends to it’s members.
I had a long conversation with one of the directors of this major camera and public liabilities insurance brokerage regarding their position on claims from photographers who had equipment damaged or stolen during the recent violence.
He explained that they placed business with three separate insurance underwriters and that they were attempting to get a statement agreed by all three so that they could let us know what the definitive position was. As this was being negotiated, the Prime Minister was speaking during the emergency debate in the House of Commons. David Cameron mention the word ‘riot’ and said that there would be payments made under the 1886 Riot (Damages) Act. This led two of the underwriters to pull back from agreeing the statement until they could get clarification about the limitations of where and how the 1886 Act would be applied.
The insurance broker’s own interpretation of the Act says that at no time was a ‘riot’ declared and therefore they couldn’t see how payments under it could be expected. This left them having to make the decision to press the underwriters for their interpretations of the situation but the Association of British Insurers have not issued their guidance yet and therefore none of the insurance companies are prepared to stick their necks out either.
We mentioned that one of the other brokers had told a photographer that their claim would be paid. He was surprised by this given that none of the London underwriters had made a decision yet.
We went on to talk about the cost of policies where full riot cover would be included and his estimate was that the current policies costing between 2% and 3% of the value of the kit insured would rise to between 15% and 20% and possibly more. He said that they would be happy to find any deals out there but that the existence of the 1886 Riot Act would remain a complicating factor.
To sum up, we don’t know whether their underwriters will pay out themselves or whether they will pass the costs onto the Government. The worst case scenario would be if the 1886 Act does not come into play but that the underwriters take a very strict line on their policy wording and not pay out if you, as a photographer, went to cover the disturbances in full knowledge of the dangers involved.
The best advice for those affected on the first night in Tottenham would be to say that you went to cover a protest demo and it developed into civil disorder whilst you were there and that you were not able to avoid remaining. The other nights are more difficult because few people went to shoot those events ‘by accident’.
If there are pictures of you wearing helmets or body armour anywhere you should consider removing them. Blog posts, tweets and Facebook entries could prove that you knew what you were letting yourself in for as well. We are not advocating committing insurance fraud but you need to decide before submitting a claim what your position at the time was. If you are claiming with any of the major insurance brokers I would suggest that you get a crime number and hold back, if you can, until we get a definitive statement.

UPDIG

Our industry is in a state of great change, and established ways of making and working with photographs have been supplanted by entirely new ones. The enormous capabilities and efficiencies of digital capture and delivery have revolutionized the image marketplace at an astounding rate. But they have also created gaps in creative and quality control that have frequently led to confusion, inequities, loss of quality, and unnecessary expense. We recognize the need for worldwide imaging quality and delivery standards that will facilitate reliable and repeatable image reproduction.

UPDIG – A big step forward in our industry

When the BPPA was re-formed we included ‘TECHNICAL” along with ETHICAL” and “CREATIVE” in our list of things to promote to a high standard within our industry. In line with this we have decided to endorse the UNIVERSAL PHOTOGRAPHIC DIGITAL IMAGING GUIDELINES, or UPDIG for short, proposed by a wide range of photographers’ organisations around the world. The guidelines form a complete background for how we work with digital files in order to promote “best practice”. We recognise that there are a number of reasons why press photographers might find it easy to avoid a few of the steps outlined but the BPPA still supports all 15 guidelines as something to aim for.

The Guidelines

Manage the color. ICC profile-based color management is the standard.
Calibrate the monitor. Monitors should be calibrated and profiled with a hardware device.
Choose a wide gamut. Use a wide-gamut RGB color space (show footnote) for capturing and editing RGB master files. We recommend Adobe RGB (1998) or ProPhoto RGB.
Capture the raw data. For best quality, digital cameras should be set to record RAW files.
Embed the profiles. All digital files should have embedded profiles (should be “tagged”), unless otherwise noted. Photoshop’s Color Management should be set to “always preserve embedded profiles,” and the “ask when opening” boxes should be checked to alert you to profile mismatches and missing profiles. When profile mismatches occur, you should elect to preserve the embedded profile.
Color space recommendations:
i) For the web, convert images to sRGB and embed sRGB profile before delivery.
ii) For display prints from professional digital color labs (show footnote), if a custom profile is available, use it for soft proofing. Then submit either sRGB or (more rarely) Adobe RGB with embedded profiles, as specified by the lab. If a lab does not have a custom profile, it’s usually best to use the sRGB color space with that profile embedded.
iii) For display prints from many consumer digital-print vendors, a database of custom profiles is available. (Show source note.) Otherwise, deliver files in the sRGB color space with embedded profile.
iv) For offset printing, it’s always best to begin by asking the printer or the client’s production expert what file format, resolution and color space they require. RGB files contain many colors that cannot be reproduced by conventional CMYK printing. This has often led to a situation where the final result looks nothing like the screen version of the file, or the inkjet print of the file. There are two ways to avoid this confusion: Files can be delivered as CMYK files. This is the “safe” way to go, because the image itself will contain no colors that can’t be reproduced by the CMYK process. Files delivered as RGB files can be accompanied by a cross-rendered guide print that includes only colors reproducible in CMYK.
v) Files can also be delivered in both CMYK and RGB. This allows the photographer to make the artistic decisions about color rendering, and gives the printer more tools to recover from mistakes the photographer may have made in converting RGB to CMYK.
vi) Ideally, CMYK image files should be converted from RGB using the printer’s CMYK profile with that profile embedded in the file. It is not always possible to get the printer’s profile, either because the printer does not have one or the client does not know who will print the images. In such cases, it’s often best to deliver an RGB master file (show footnote), with an embedded profile and a ReadMe file that explains that “for accurate color, the embedded RGB profile should be preserved” when opening the file. CMYK profiles and the RGB alternative are discussed on page XREF 6.
vii) For inkjet and dye-sub printers (show footnote), use a wide-gamut color space, such as Adobe RGB, for the source space. Use a custom profile for the printer-paper combination in the print space to get the best quality and the best match to a profiled monitor.
Formats and names. File formats should always be denoted by standard, three-letter file extensions.
i) For the web, use JPEG files.
ii) For print, uncompressed TIFFs are best. Use JPEG only when bandwidth or storage constraints require it. Use the highest JPEG quality setting possible. We recommend not using less than “8” quality.
iii) To avoid problems with files that will be transferred across computing platforms, name files with only the letters of the alphabet and the numerals 0 through 9. Avoid punctuation marks (other than hyphen and underscore), accented vowels and other special characters. Keep the full name (including extension) to 31 characters or less for files on a network or removable media, and to 11 characters or less (including the three-letter file extension) when burning to CDR, in case a recipient’s computers don’t support long filenames. For the complete guide to file naming protocol, see the Controlled Vocabulary website.
Appropriate resolution. Resolution of digital images is described by three numbers: height, width and ppi (pixels per inch). Beware: It’s easy to confuse ppi with dpi (dots per inch), which refers to the resolution of a printing device, or with lpi (lines per inch), which describes a halftone grid or screen used for printing images on a press.
The following target resolutions are meaningful only when paired with the height and width at which an image will appear in the final form:
i) Low (monitor or “screen”) resolution is defined as less than 100 ppi.
ii) Inkjet prints normally need resolutions of 180 ppi to 360 ppi.
iii) Continuous-tone printing requires resolutions of 250 ppi to 400 ppi.
The offset-printing standard is often considered 300 ppi. But resolutions of 1.3 – 2 times the halftone screen for the project are considered safe. If the images will be printed at 150 lpi, the appropriate image file resolution range would be 195 ppi to 300 ppi.
Sharpen last. All digital images require sharpening, during capture or after, and the correct amount to apply depends on the type of use and size of the final output. For most uses, it’s best to sharpen little or none during capture with a camera or scanner. Sharpening is an art, and requires study and practice. There are several schools of thought regarding proper sharpening. One recommended method is to remove capture softness using a gentle sharpening pass followed by local sharpening and/or output sharpening. Sharpening should be the final step in reproduction, because resizing and contrast adjustment affect an image’s sharpness. Sharpening is best evaluated at 100 percent and 50 percent views on your monitor, or by making a print. The most common sharpening method is to apply an “unsharp mask” filter (higher settings for higher-resolution files) to images, but other sharpening methods and Photoshop plug-in programs can be useful, too. Oversharpening creates obvious halos around edges within images.
Delivery. Digital image files may be delivered on removable media (removable hard drive, CD-Rs or DVD-Rs), or via FTP or e-mail. If files are delivered on CD-R, the standard disc formatting is ISO 9660 or “Mac OS extended and PC (Hybrid) CD.” When delivering images on a DVD-R, make sure the recipient can read the chosen format, since there are multiple standards. Often speed and convenience require delivery by File Transfer Protocol (FTP). Although not a preferred method, e-mail delivery usually works if image files are small in number and size, and both sender’s and recipient’s internet service providers permit large attachments. E-mail delivery sometimes works better if the image files are first compressed using RLE compression software such as WinZip or Stuffit. Check to make sure the recipient can access your specific version of compressed files. Delivery by FTP or e-mail usually precludes delivery of a “guide print” (discussed below), so a disclaimer should always be included that states accurate viewing and reproduction depend on the recipient properly applying ICC color management.
File info. All digital image files should have embedded metadata — including copyright, usage license and contact information — that conforms to the IPTC or the newer IPTC Core standards. Photoshop users can input and edit this information by choosing “File Info” under the File menu. Adding caption, title, origin and keyword data enhances searches and organization with digital asset management applications.
Describe what’s there. Provide a ReadMe file in either .PDF, .HTML, or .TXT format with all files delivered for output. Such files should specify image size(s), color space(s) and any licenses granted, the copyright owner’s contact information and, if certain rights are being withheld, the words “other uses, reproduction or distribution are specifically prohibited.” The ReadMe file should also include disclaimers noting recipients are responsible for following an ICC-based color management workflow.
Send a guide. Whenever possible, include a guide print with digital image files. A guide print is typically an inkjet print that serves as a color reference for reproduction of a digital image file.
Disk labels. Do not use adhesive labels on optical media, since they may separate and damage an optical drive. Printing directly on inkjet-writable CDRs or DVDRs is a good way to provide information such as your copyright, usage license, file lists and disclaimers.
Long term. Archiving responsibilities should be clearly stated in writing for everyone involved. Photographers should note that charging for archiving could mean assuming liability for maintaining such archives. Prudent photographers keep back-ups on external magnetic drives, as well as on optical media and, if possible, also keep duplicate back-ups offsite.

Copyright © 2005 UPDIG. The UPDIG Working Group hopes that these Guidelines will be distributed widely, so there is no fee for permission to reproduce this copyrighted material. However, because new versions are released from time to time, we ask that you register to receive the update notices and that you agree to replace or remove any outdated versions. (Webmasters: For your convenience, a kit of parts — graphics, source files, assembly hints, high- and low-res PDFs — is available upon registration.) To register, send email to UPDIG.
Every reproduction must include the logos of the UPDIG member associations and the list of contributors; it must identify the version of the document (this is version 1.0, released in September 2005); and it must provide a link to the UPDIG web site, www.updig.org.

Five Thousand Days – The Movie

This Quicktime .mp4 movie was made by Dillon Bryden when he was in Italy overseeing the printing of the first copies of Five Thousand Days in 2004.

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