Our response to the IPO consultation on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence

Back in December the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) launched a consultation on the use of copyright material for training AI models. They pointed out that this has presented new challenges for the UK’s copyright framework, and many rights holders (especially photographers) have found it difficult to exercise our rights in this context. They pointed out that it is important that copyright continues to support the UK’s world-leading creative industries and creates the conditions for AI innovation that allows them to share in the benefits of these new technologies.

This consultation sought views on proposals to deliver against the government’s objectives for this area, which are:

  • Boosting trust and transparency between sectors, by ensuring AI developers provide right holders with greater clarity about how they use their material.
  • Enhancing right holders’ control over whether or not their works are used to train AI models, and their ability to be paid for its use where they so wish.
  • Ensuring AI developers have access to high-quality material to train leading AI models in the UK and support innovation across the UK AI sector.

Thanks to a great deal of hard work from Board Member Andrew Wiard we have made a submission to the consultation which makes it clear that we, as photographers, have a lot to lose if the Government introduce an opt-out system for those wishing to not have their work used for creating AI models. We have pointed out that the current copyright laws, if enhanced and properly supported, offer rights holders the best chance of protection against widespread copyright theft that these AI models are employing.

If you’d like to read it, you can find The BPPA’s submission here

The BPPA joins the Creative Rights in AI Coalition

Following a meeting of our Board on Wednesday 8th January 2025 The BPPA has joined the UK based Creative Rights in AI Coalition as a member organisation. We will be submitting our objections to the Intellectual Property Office’s Consultation on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence. 

We would urge our members and anyone else who believes that the creative industries will be seriously adversely affected by the IPO’s proposals to also object before the deadline on the 25th of February 2025.  Use this link to register your opposition.

Along with our formal objection, The BPPA is issuing the following statement:

There are many reasons, both economic and aesthetic, why the proposed new exemption should be opposed outright by creators. We are confining our remarks here to the rights and ethical obligations of our members.

We are the eyes of the public. They see through our eyes what they cannot see through theirs. They trust us to bear witness to the truth. We cannot betray their trust. This we would do if we in any way allow our authentic press photographs to be used to create photorealistic fake news. It is not just our reputations at a stake here, but the fundamentals of participating in a democratic society.

For these reasons we are opposed to any exception to copyright law permitting such abuse. The proposed opt-out procedure is both wrong in principle and impractical. Our rights should not be taken away subject to retrieval. They should not be taken away in the first place. As has been said elsewhere, shopkeepers should not have to opt out of shoplifting.

This is also impractical for a number of reasons, including the following. Countless thousands of our photographs are already online and there is no way of excepting these from the proposed exception. It is no argument to say they have already been stolen in the past. They are still there available for AI abuse today and for years to come. For the future, our members take thousands of photographs each and every day. While software exists, and will become more widely available, permitting a reservation to the proposed exception to be inserted into photographic metadata, it is in the nature of news work that so many of our pictures would leave our hands immediately before we have the opportunity to put this into effect. They would then, according to the proposed exception, undoubtedly be considered free to use, and abuse, by all. Moreover such metadata is routinely stripped, and while that is contrary to the law, we have no way of policing or preventing it. If still retained, we would then be dependent on others having both the will and the means to read and abide by reservations to the proposed exception.

The only way through this morass, and to both respect and protect our rights, is for creators to have the right to opt in if they so choose. Our pictures should not be available for AI purposes without our prior permission. We should not be placed in the position of having to go to court, for which we in any case do not have the means, to restore the rights taken from us. Furthermore we are not attracted by the offer of financial compensation for unethical abuse through Generative AI.

The Board of The BPPA, January 2025

South Yorkshire Police and journalistic materials

Back on the 4th of August freelance photographer Joel Goodman photographed an anti-immigration protest triggered by the misinformation that was circulating following the murder of young children in Southport on Merseyside. The protest took place outside a hotel in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, where a number of asylum seekers were being housed. The demonstration became a riot and police made some arrests at the scene followed by many more in the subsequent days and weeks. Joel’s pictures were news pictures. Pure photojournalism – yet South Yorkshire Police have singled him out from the other photographers present and demanded access to his unpublished material threatening court action if he doesn’t comply. This goes against what we all know to be right; that journalistic materials are protected. As part of our fightback against the actions of South Yorkshire Police The BPPA yesterday issued the following statement: One of the key tenets of good journalism is the need to protect and retain the trust of those who we come into contact with. This position has been recognised in court over the years when attempts have been made to seize material. In a famous judgement in Judicial Review Lord Justice Eady emphasised this.
“The [previous] judge should have feared for the loss of trust in those hitherto believed to be neutral observers if such observers maybe too readily compelled to hand over their material. It is the neutrality of the press which affords them protection and augments their ability freely to obtain and disseminate visual recording of events.”
Guidelines under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 specifically protect journalists and special procedure material. As news gatherers we must retain the right to refuse all attempts to force us to hand over material and it is a matter of huge concern that officers and their forces might try to use the courts to force us to do so. This is intimidation and bullying and members of the law enforcement community should not stoop to the use of such tactics – especially when there is a very real threat that defending ourselves could cost us a great deal of money in contrast to police forces who have access to far greater resources. In the performance of our jobs press photographers regularly face difficult and dangerous situations. We cannot be seen to act as an extension of the police or as gatherers of evidence. Should this happen, our safety would be compromised and our ability to act as the eyes and ears of the general public would be damaged. Individual members of the media would become targets during events and at any point in the future when there may be a suspicion that our material is being used as part of an investigation or prosecution. The Board of The British Press Photographers’ Association met this week and considered, with great concern, the actions currently being taken by South Yorkshire Police against freelance photographer Joel Goodman following the recent civil unrest when protestors gathered outside a hotel in Rotherham largely occupied by asylum seekers. We consider the attempts by South Yorkshire Police to acquire his material to be wrong and to go against accepted norms of behaviour. Furthermore, we consider their singling out him as the sole independent freelancer present as harassment.

Artificial Intelligence, press photography and The BPPA’s position

At a time when Artificial intelligence (or AI for short) is being simultaneously hailed as the technology that will change all of our lives for the better and for the worse it has become obvious that it plays two very distinct roles in press photography.

There’s “good AI” that helps us to caption images faster and more accurately as well as toning and even cropping pictures with greater accuracy and speed. On the flip side we have a form of artificial intelligence known as Generative AI that has made its way into our industry and which has rapidly become one of the greatest threats that press photographers have faced in recent times.

Generative AI creates artificial pictures using text prompts alone. It doesn’t take your existing image and “improve” it – it’s far cleverer than that. Trained by Machine Learning (ML) with access to billions of real photographs it uses your words and creates something that can often be frighteningly good at the same time as being, well, frightening. Most of the pictures that this form of AI uses as its source material have been copied without either the permission of or payment to the photographers who took them. This constitutes a breach of copyright on an industrial scale.

Generative AI threatens not only our intellectual property rights, but the also the ethics and aesthetics of who we are and what we do. A large percentage of the public have already learned to be sceptical about the honesty of images. “Oh that’s been Photoshopped” is an all-too-common refrain whose potency will be dwarfed by the mistrust of imagery that will become commonplace should AI be allowed to take a hold.

Getty Images has reacted to the general release of the latest Adobe Creative Cloud tools saying that “Getty Images does not accept files created using AI generative models. This includes Adobe’s recently announced Creative Cloud tools, which are now available with its Firefly‑powered generative AI tools built in”.

In our mission statement The British Press Photographers’ Association affirms that we exist “To promote and inspire the highest ethical, technical and creative standards from withing our industry”.

Our highly talented and dedicated members create authentic photographs of reality, drawing on their talent, insight, experience and inspiration. Generative AI produces false, sterile, artless and soulless images, draining all that is human out of the visual arts.

By creating utterly fake but seemingly realistic pictures, of people and events with no existence beyond the computer screen Generative AI threatens public trust in press photography and photojournalism.

We are the eyes of the public. The public trust us to provide an accurate and honest depiction of the news, essential to the functioning of a democratic society.

Fake news threatens both them and us. To separate fact from fiction and truth from falsehood it is now essential to identify both AI images and genuine photographs, putting their provenance beyond doubt.

The BPPA welcomes proposals for legislation, by amongst others the UK and the EU, to enforce the labelling of all AI pictures. We are in support of schemes such as the Content Authenticity Initiative which would allow our members to be part of a program to assure the credibility of genuine photographs and in turn maintain the reputation of press photography.

Assignments 2023 travels to Wales

Following a hugely successful showing of Assignments 2023 at the Bargehouse in London, we are delighted to announce that the exhibition is now moving to Wales.

The exhibition will be available to view in full at Ffotogallery in Cardiff from June 8 until July 22.

All are welcome to come to the opening night on June 8 where we will also have a talk by Joann Randles, our 2022 Portrait Photographer of the Year.

“The BPPA are delighted to bring ‘Assignments23’ to Wales for the first time following on from our London exhibition. It is our aim to take the photographs on from their initial showing to other parts of the UK, giving them a wider audience and we’re delighted to be working with Ffotogallery to bring this incredible representation of British press photography to Cardiff.” – Chair of the BPPA Paul Ellis

More information can be found at Ffotogallery’s website

Amendment to the Public Order Bill

The Guardian has reported that the upcoming Public Order Bill will be amended to give journalists covering protests extra protection following the unjustifiable arrests of photographers, a filmmaker and reporters at Just Stop Oil actions last year. The House of Lords recognised that changes were needed to the bill and voted for changes to be made. According to The Guardian, Home Secretary, The Rt Hon Suella Braverman MP, will table her own amendment to add extra protections saying that

“A constable may not exercise a police power for the sole purpose of preventing a person from observing or reporting on a protest”.

The BPPA has been lobbying for all UK police forces to make sure that their officers understand the role of the media. If changes to The Bill are made and, if this amendment is included, this goes some way towards meeting what we and other organisations have been calling for.

The BPPA’s Press Photographer of the Year 2022 Results

We are delighted to announce that Reuters photographer Hannah McKay has been named as The BPPA’s Press Photographer of the Year for 2022. More than 2000 photographs taken throughout the year were entered into the 10 categories by photographers working in the UK and abroad. Members of the association were then invited to vote for they favourite entries in each category with members of the board then choosing the overall winning portfolio from the category winners..

Category Winners

  • Arts & Entertainment- Robert Perry
  • Business – Simon Hulme
  • Essay – Simon Townsley
  • Essay (death of a monarch) Victoria Jones
  • News – Hannah McKay
  • Portrait – Joann Randles
  • Royal – Max Mumby
  • Sport (action) – Ben Stansall
  • Sport (away from the action) – Eddie Keogh
  • Young Photographer – George Cracknell-Wright

Highly Commended

  • Arts & Entertainment – Julian Simmonds
  • Business – Danny Lawson
  • Essay – Kiran Ridley
  • Essay (death of a monarch) – Ben Stansall
  • News – Chris Furlong
  • Portrait – Chris Furlong
  • Royal – James Whatling
  • Sport (action) – Shaun Botterill
  • Sport (away from the action) – Justin Setterfield, Michael Steele and Neil Hall
  • Young Photographer – Molly Darlington

Comment from the Chair:

It’s been another great year for The BPPA’s competition with an increase in the number of entries on last year and also the number of members of our association having their say as to who should be named as winners of each category. The quality of the images is absolutely first class.

It felt that 2022 provided more breaking news and sporting events to focus on than ever before. With the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in the summer and then the time following her passing later in the year, I feel that the galleries of photographs in the ‘Royal’ and ‘Photo Essay – Death of a monarch’ categories show how incredibly high the standard of press photography is in this country.

The war in Ukraine has demonstrated the skill and bravery of photographers and many of their images are displayed in our ‘News’ and ‘Essay’ categories. On the sporting front, The Commonwealth Games, World Gymnastics as well as The World Cup and Premier League provided just a few of the subjects on show in the sporting categories.

The Arts, Business and Portraits really do show how creative photographers can be. Also, I’m delighted that once again we have a winner from the regional press as well as freelance winners based in Scotland and Wales representing press photography across the country.

I’d like to thank everyone for entering, judging and to the team at The BPPA for their hard work to run this competition on behalf of press photographers.

Paul Ellis, Chair, The BPPA

We would like to thank our friends at Canon for their continued support

The BPPA’s Press Photographer of the Year Competition 2022

We’re delighted to announce that The BPPA’s Press Photographer of the Year will be open for entries on Monday 16th January.

The format remains the same, ten categories to enter including an essay category to highlight the work of photographers following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. And once entries are closed judging by members of The BPPA will follow before The BPPA board meet to judge the overall ‘Press Photographer of the Year’ from the category winners.
Paul Ellis, Chair of The BPPA said “I’m very excited for the return of The BPPA’s Press Photographer of the Year competition, now in its third year of running. The competition has shown the best of British press photography and after an extraordinarily busy and exciting year I’m sure the entries will continue being of the highest standard. The turnaround is much quicker this year, with much more coming for members of The BPPA later in the year, so photographers will need to get their entries in promptly.”
The categories :
News Photographer of the Year
Arts and Entertainment Photographer of the Year
Portrait Photographer of the Year
Royal Photographer of the Year
Business Photographer of the Year
Sport Photographer of the Year (action)
Sport Photographer of the Year (away from the action)
Essay Photographer of the Year
Young Photographer of the Year (under 25s either in full time photography employment or students studying photography at a further education institution)
Replacing the Covid-19 essay category, we introduce – Essay Photographer of the Year – ‘death of a monarch’.
Each entry will consist of a portfolio of upto six images taken between January 1st, 2022 and December 31st, 2022 – with the exception of the two essay categories which will consist of ten images.

It’s a much tighter turnaround this year so get your entires ready!
Timeline:
Mon 16 Jan – open for entries to all categories
Sun 22 Jan – entries close
Fri 27 Jan – voting opens
Tue 31 Jan – voting closes
Fri 3 Feb – winners announced
Good luck!

Just Stop Oil Arrests Update

The report into Hertfordshire Police’s actions in arresting members of the media during recent Just Stop Oil actions has come out. We received a request for a response from reach plc and gave the following reply:

“The BPPA is pleased that the report confirms that no blame can be apportioned to the four members of the media who were wrongly arrested and detained. We have a number of criticisms of the report:

  1. It makes no mention of the arrest of another press photographer at another JSO event the previous month by Surrey Police. This was clearly wrong and lessons need to be shared between forces -especially where they are working together on these larger operations.
  2. There is no proper consideration of the duration of the detentions and the culpability of custody officers in not recognising those detained as being members of the press.
  3. The search of one of the homes appears to have been authorised long after it must have been obvious that they were holding a legitimate member of the media who had repeatedly tried to point out that he held a UK Press Card.
  4. The attempt to verify the UK Press Card several hours after the arrest was poorly conducted and the relevant information required was not sought from the holder. Had the verification been carried out before the arrest most of these problems could have been avoided.
  5. The fifth and final recommendation says that “Hertfordshire Constabulary should consider ensuring that all officers engaged with public order activity complete the NUJ package and identified learning is shared.” It may well be dismissed as formal police language but when it says “should consider ensuring” rather than the more appropriate “must ensure” our concerns are nowhere near addressed.

We would highlight the following sections as being important:  

Point 3.6 of Chief Superintendent Jon Hutchinson’s report says that “Having reviewed the evidence and the information available to the officers at the time there seems to be a disconnect as to how they arrived at the outcome they did. The interactions of officers suggest that arrest was the likely outcome regardless of the information obtained”. Unpacking this we would suggest that members of the Hertfordshire Constabulary got it badly wrong.

We are also pleased that in section 6.1 the report notes that “All officers engaged with public order operations (including level three and all tiers of Command) are required to watch and complete the CoP National Union of Journalists (NUJ) video which explains the rights of reporters and photographers during public order situations. There is a requirement to refresh this every 3-years.” 

We note that in 6.3 the officers arresting two of the four members of the media were not compliant with that requirement. If this is representative of the level of compliance across this, or any other,  force then that is both worrying and disappointing. This point is emphasised in 9.5 where the report simply says that “It was believed that officers had a lack of understanding as to the role of the media and how they operate.”

Police powers were not used appropriately. Section 10.24 admits this and goes on to say that “There is evidence to suggest the potential for the arrests to amount to an ‘unlawful interference’ with the individual’s freedom of expression under Article 10 ECHR.”

The BPPA looks forward to working with the National Police Chiefs Council to reinforce the findings of this report and make sure that the correct training and procedures are followed in the future.”

Our Associate Member scheme is now open

At the association’s AGM in 2019 we started the ball rolling towards the creation of a new category of membership of The BPPA.

As part of our role of “inspiring” we chose to do this by helping to guide and mentor the next generation of photographers wanting to join the profession. This is now becoming a reality and we are delighted to announce that the doors are open to anyone fulfilling the criteria:

“Any person who is not yet working full-time as a press photographer but who is striving to achieve that goal either through working part-time in the industry or by studying on a course specialising in news photography, photojournalism or related editorial photography.“

Starting with a mentoring group based on Facebook the association will be inviting anyone who would like to apply for Associate Membership to do so by contacting us.

We have been working with relevant courses at Falmouth University and the University of Gloucestershire to develop the concept and hope to expand to other institutions as well as anyone who has chosen to make their way into the industry through other routes. The team of mentors has been put together and consists of a broad range of experience and specialisms. It includes agency and newspaper staff photographers as well as experienced freelancers.

Associate Membership is open to any person who is not yet working full-time as a press photographer but who is striving to achieve that goal either through working part-time in the industry or by studying on a course specialising in news photography, photojournalism or related editorial photography. Accordingly there are two routes into Associate Membership of the Association:

RULES OF THE SCHEME

Independent photographers working part-time in the industry and anyone studying on a non-approved course

  • Portfolio review by two or more members of the sub-committee
  • Interview in person or via tele-conference to include questions about copyright, metadata, ethics etc
  • Agreeing to sign up to the The BPPA’s Code
  • The length of the Associate Membership offered should be agreed after their interview and be part of the offer of Associate Membership but not less than twelve months

Those Currently studying on, or who have recently graduated from, an approved course

  • Students on an approved course just have to sign up, agree to abide by the The BPPA’s Code and they will be eligible for associate membership.
  • Courses will be approved by a sub-committee of The Board based on whether they are specialising in news photography, photojournalism and related editorial photography and teaching a list of topics such as copyright, metadata, ethics etc
  • The length of the Associate Membership offered should be not less than the duration of their course for students on approved courses plus six months and in extensions of a year thereafter.
  • The BPPA will offer an on-line based mentoring scheme where all Associate Members will have access to a panel of experienced press photographers. From time-to-time we will extend offers to Associate Members and try, wherever possible, to include them in the activities of the association

Notes:

  • There will be no option of a UK Press Card being issued to Associate Members. The press card is only open to full members.
  • Associate Members would not be offered their own galleries on our site and would not be eligible for the Find-a-Freelance system.