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

Appreciating the work of press photographers

To launch the re-design of this site this piece by Karen Kay, which was originally posted on social media, has been reproduced here with her permission. Karen is a broadcast and print journalist who has worked on national newspapers, magazines and as a TV and radio, correspondent, presenter, producer and pundit for 30+ years. She now runs Shoot the Messenger, a media training and communications coaching business, and is married to a long-standing member of The BPPA.

Many of my friends and professional colleagues have talked fondly of this image, probably the last portrait of our Queen, taken by Press Association photographer Jane Barlow at Balmoral as she awaited the arrival of Liz Truss, to invite her to form a government.

Do read this piece. Appreciate the work of press photographers. Full disclosure: I’m biased, I am married to a stalwart snapper, and have long observed that he and his talented colleagues across the industry are rarely given the credit they deserve. At editorial meetings, industry parties, media awards, leaving dos, on front pages and inside spreads, it’s most often the scribes who are lauded, with photographers the unsung heroes who bring our words to life or whose work stands alone to tell a thousand words.

They often operate in the most challenging circumstances, given moments to work in an unfamiliar, sometimes hostile environment, or a setting chosen by someone else, often without consideration to background, light, composition and the comfort and character of the sitter. They work under immense pressure, often with hours of boredom then a few seconds to “capture the shot” required by a waiting newsroom, who often have a pre-conceived idea of what they are expecting. If a journalist misses a moment, they can write around it, glean anecdotes from others, sometimes report using news footage from the comfort of a newsroom, their living room or a hotel room, but not a photographer. Miss it and it’s gone. From war zones to world events, from protests to political portraits, they most often the first to arrive and the last to leave.

The last couple of days have highlighted the timeless power of a beautifully composed photograph. Whether it’s a news image documenting an event or a significant moment or a posed portrait, a still captures a split second that resonates in a way that video footage doesn’t. We can pore over detail and bask in the stillness. Almost everyone I know, and every business sharing public condolences, has shared images as a mark of respect on social media (almost certainly breaching copyright law), because a particular image or set of images resonates with their memory of a much-loved monarch.

It was extremely telling that, across the TV news broadcasts announcing the Queen’s death and in the hours that followed, so much of the coverage relied on photographs rather than filmed images of the late monarch. And, of course, the front pages and content of newspapers the following day, that still provide a starkly memorable punctuation mark in history, often bought as souvenirs of a watershed moment.

TV footage (& other filmed material) is valuable as a document, and tells different stories, but it has been wonderful to see people appreciate some truly exceptional photographs taken by the greats, such as Cecil Beaton, Snowdon, Lichfield, et Al, plus an extraordinary portfolio of work by press photographers over the years, including the delightful portrait by the late Jane Bown, formerly of the Observer, who was commissioned to mark the Queen’s 80th birthday with a private sitting, when she herself was 81. The radiant, serene black and white image released to announce the monarch’s death was from that session.

I have heard so many people – from royal pundits to friends – remarking on their favourite pictures of the Queen, discussing the candid moments of her with her horses or at the races, showing a contented woman with a beaming smile, or the exquisite frames of a young princess, dressed in swathes of couture silk satin by Norman Hartnell. Then there are the poignant ones that time stamp more painful moments – how can we forget that heart-rending frame of a frail, mask-clad widow sat alone, grieving in St George’s Chapel at the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral. I urge you all to acknowledge and remember how valuable and important good photography is as a document – easy to forget now we all have an iPhone and 15,000 – often mediocre – images in our pockets.

An open response to a recent social media post about gender in press photography

The BPPA has come in for some criticism from a group called Women Photographers of the UK about what they refer to as the uneven representation of women in the current Assignments 2019 exhibition. You can read their open letter here on Medium. This is a response from Lynne Cameron, Vice Chair of The BPPA.
 
Dear Suzanne, Anna and Susannah
 
We would like to reassure those expressing concerns about the representation of women in our industry that we are very aware of the issues and are currently working on projects to support and help current and future female members of the organisation. We were disappointed that these concerns were not directed to The BPPA in the first instance as we welcome all constructive criticism. It is one of our core values to work transparently with all parties in any matter related to photography.
 
The issue of gender imbalance is a complex one, not just related to photography but to wider society.
 
The association is proactively working to improve such imbalances. As an example The BPPA elected me as Vice Chair and Julie Edwards as our Social Media and Website Editor at last year’s AGM. We are both long-standing professional photographers who have first hand experience of gender related issues within our industry. Julie and I are bringing our experiences, energy and ideas to The Board and welcome further positive constructive comments which could help address this wider topic.
 
In relation to the exhibition (it is not a competition) we would like to reassure those concerned that images were curated by highly regarded members of the profession who were deliberately not given any information about the name or gender of the photographers in order to make the selection process ‘about the images’ as far as is humanly possible.
 
We are extremely proud of Assignments – an exhibition designed to promote and highlight the amazing work that is being produced by our members.
 
The Board of The BPPA welcomes constructive input from anyone who wants to help to promote and inspire great photography. If you have ideas on what more can be done on the issues raised then please get in contact with me or any of the other members of our Board.
 
Lynne Cameron
 
Vice Chair, The BPPA
 
 
 
Statistics:
 
1. The BPPA has 321 paid-up members of whom 40 are women – which is approximately 12.46%.
2. 16 photographers joined or rejoined in order to take part in Assignments 2019 of whom 25% were women.
3. 161 photographers entered photographs for Assignments 2019 of whom 18 were women – 11.2%
4. 1,351 photographs were entered of which 148 were entered by women – 10.95%
5. 110 photographs were selected for exhibition of which 10 were by women – 9.3%

Assignments is back – and not just in London!


The exhibition of the best of British press photography returns – and as well as the London show we are taking over the The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Stoke on Trent for a whole month.
The opening night is Tuesday 23 July- and will run until Sunday 25th of August to coincide with summer holiday season.
We are doing things slightly differently this year – full details on the website – but here are the key facts:

  • Entries open on April 1
  • Entries close April 12th
  • Pictures taken between 31st August 2017 and 14th April 2019 are eligible
  • We have increased the maximum number of pictures you can enter to 10 this year
  • There is a £10 registration fee to help us pay for everything
  • There is NO framing fee this year – our friends at Canon and Fixation are very kindly picking up the bill for us!
  • We will be doing the “catalogue” and the “contact sheet” again
  • (every image entered makes the contact sheet – so you can choose your own favourites)
  • Everyone who enters gets a pair of invites to the opening night party!
  • The exhibition is open to BPPA members – but if you have lapsed or haven’t got round to joining you can do so now

Check out the Assignments website for the full rules and details of how to enter: https://assignments.thebppa.com
You haven’t got long – so get hunting through those hard drives now!!

Alamy – a follow-up

The UK Press Gazette quoted The BPPA’s open letter to Alamy’s CEO in their piece about his video signalling his intention to reduce the photographers percentage of royalties to 40%. This morning the UKPG asked us to provide a response to James West’s latest video where he offers to keep the 50% split for exclusive content. We provided the following text:
 
“Alamy’s move to alter their commission structure has brought a large number of other issues to the surface such as the low prices they sell pictures for, their broken promise that when they reduced the photographers cut to 50% they wouldn’t go further and their somewhat grudging acceptance that it is the commitment and buy-in from thousands of photographers that has got them to the positive position in which they now find themselves.
 
The BPPA welcomes Alamy’s decision to reconsider their reduction in the percentage paid to photographers but in making this only for exclusive content they are still going to anger many of our members. One of them has said “exclusivity is appropriate to a delicatessen, not a Walmart” and this sums up how most feel.
 
Should they push ahead with this plan the details of how they manage this will be complex. Will photographers have to make some sort of declaration for every single picture retrospectively? Will the burden for proving exclusivity rest with the photographers? Our opinion is that Alamy are still not listening and are still cutting the income of all those photographers who for very good reasons do not wish to, or cannot, surrender exclusivity.”

New Board Member for Social Media & Web

We’d like to introduce you to the new board member who will all be playing an active role in making this yet another successful year for the BPPA and British Press Photography.
I am Julie Edwards and I have been a press photographer for just over 10 years, working mainly in the Entertainment Industry.
I have already introduced a series to the BPPA website called “Members Talks” but my second task is to ensure that all the new (and old) board members write an introduction or “about me” focused not on their photography but what they believe the BPPA should be and how they will help achieve that. It’s not fair that I ask others to do this without putting pen to paper myself first.
With this in mind, what follows is not the normal “I’m a photographer because I grew up surrounded by photography” type introduction  (although I did as my dad was in newspaper distribution and I was surrounded by all the papers every day).
At school I was a maths head and started my career just as the desktop computer revolution started. My father said “computers are the future”, so I combined my maths and design talent in the drawing office running computer aided design systems. This career grew and I ended up as a consultant selling and implementing some of the most advanced design solutions on PC’s, starting my own software company in the 90’s as the internet era was in it’s infancy. Luckily I was working with one of the largest organisations in the CAD field whose investment in Marketing and Sales training was second to none which I benefited from greatly. In about 2007 I gave this all up with a huge change in direction to return to my first love: photography. Well not just photography, press photography, using my sales and marketing skills to get into positions quite quickly that normally take many years in the industry.
Why do I detail this past? My portfolio for the BPPA is Web & Social media. I have a past well rooted in technology and problem solving, anyone who knows me knows I have some of the most bleeding edge and automated workflows possible. This gives me the right background to help to bring the BPPA right up to date into a modern, forward looking, helpful association that press photographers think vital to be part of.
UK Press photographers are not always the most creative but they are without doubt the most versatile, quick thinking and resourceful photographers on the planet. Our work is seen every single day by millions of people. No other group of photographers have their work this visible and yet, only last week, on a train, I was likened to being “no higher than an Estate Agent”. Why do we have this reputation? Probably because the only time we are in the limelight is when it is negative (privacy intrusion etc). The BPPA needs to help change that, it needs to show the world what we do and the web is the perfect platform for this. 
Julie

Members Stories: Boris goes for a run…

In the first post of what will be a regular feature of BPPA Members telling the story behind a photo, BPPA Member Peter Macdiarmid, photographer London News Pictures, talks about …. Boris goes for a run ….
It’s not often that a press photograph leads the news agenda, but it does happen now and again.
I have been working as a press photographer for 31 years starting out on local newspapers in south London then progressing to The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, Reuters and 10 years as senior news photographer at Getty Images. Currently I work at London News Pictures, covering news and politics.
For me news photography is a passion and I put a lot of time and effort into looking for different images that catch the reader’s attention and illustrate a story in a unique, and hopefully original way. Sometimes this approach can make an ordinary image really stand out.
With this in mind I went looking for former foreign secretary Boris Johnson at his Oxfordshire home during last week’s Conservative Party Conference. Thinking that Boris would leave his house and head up the M40 to Birmingham for the second day of conference I positioned myself in the road outside by his driveway. Usually Boris will give a happy wave to any reporters and photographers as he gets into his car, but today I was on my own.
A short while after the sunrise began to cut through the October chill I spotted Boris leaving for an early morning run wearing his usual flowery shorts. I managed to capture a cheery wave before he disappeared down the lane that leads to the farmland surrounding his house. Normal practice, when there is a group of press doorstepping Boris, is to wait for his return and photograph him running up the lane back home, but today I decided to make use of the golden hour sunrise.
Having not ventured out into the nearby fields previously, I had to make an educated guess as to his return route. I located a spot that would enable me to photograph him crossing a path edged with long grass between two ploughed fields before turning left towards me.
I had guessed correctly and a few minutes later Boris emerged from the woodland leading to the path. He spotted me and waved. Sometimes he waves without looking up, and on this occasion he was also half raising his other arm for balance, all of which made a rather unusual image. He then jogged past me on his way home.

Peter Macdiarmid, photographer London News Pictures
© Licensed to London News Pictures. 01/10/2018. Thame, UK. Boris Johnson waves at photographers as he runs near his Oxfordshire home. The former foreign secretary is due to attend Conservative Party Conference this week. Photo credit: Peter Macdiarmid/LNP

Rather pleased that I had found a different way of photographing the MP that was the talking point of the Conservative Party Conference, I set off back to the car to edit and transmit my images.
Within a couple of hours the images started to appear online, but with a headline that was markedly different to my caption ‘Boris Johnson waves as he runs through fields near his Oxfordshire home’. The Mirror online headline was ‘Boris Johnson commits greatest trolling in world history by running through a FIELD OF WHEAT’…. referring to the Prime Minister’s confession that the ‘naughtiest thing she has ever done’ was to ‘run through a field of wheat as a child’
My images of a man out jogging in the morning sunshine began to take on a life of their own. I spent the rest of the day fielding calls from ITV, Channel 5, BBC TV, CNN International and German TV asking for the picture for news bulletins. Multiple newspaper online websites were publishing my pictures and it was being talked about on radio bulletins by lunchtime. That day’s Evening Standard ran it on page one and another inside.
Tuesday’s papers ran the image across four front pages and on inside pages too.

I have received a few phone calls asking me if it was a stunt – as you can see – it wasn’t.
Peter Macdiarmid
London News Pictures

Election 2015 – Never Mind The Deja Vu

Back in 2005 The BPPA put together a project called “Never Mind The Ballots” which was a response to the “most stage managed, spin driven and least visually interesting elections in modern times”. Press photographers faced a month of ten minute photocalls and long frustrating waits whilst trying to find interesting and journalistically significant images. Ten years later the sense of deja vu was only diluted by the fact that things had actually become worse.
Because of that, we decided to run Election 2015 – a partner to the 2005 project to show that the ingenuity and skill of press photographers haven’t faded. The gallery is now on line HERE and if you like it please share it, tweet it and make sure that as many people as possible see what lengths we have to go to to get the pictures that actually tell the story.

Our Draft Code

 
Immediately after the Leveson Inquiry we started to think about how a code of conduct could be drafted for The BPPA that would help prospective members and the British public understand what our profession is all about.
We looked at similar documents from all over the world and we looked at the various codes of conduct and practice that our clients have already signed up to. It has been a massive task and we are proud to unveil what we are calling the “Final Draft” which was approved at a Board meeting last week. Here is the code in full:
The British Press Photographers’ Association Code of Conduct
Members of The British Press Photographers’ Association are professional photographers concerned with taking, editing and distributing news, feature, sports and other editorial photographs. Their work is predominantly for the British news media. The photographers take every care with their work, but it remains the responsibility of publishers to carry out checks concerning accuracy, damage to reputation, and the will of the Courts.

Press photographers should:

  1. Observe the highest ethical, technical and creative standards. They should conduct themselves in a manner reflecting those standards and be aware that their actions, both positive and negative, reflect on the profession as a whole
  2. Not materially alter their images, or edit them in such a way as to give misleading impressions of news events
  3. Provide accurate and comprehensive caption information
  4. Resist any offers of payment or other inducements from third parties involved in the story to change the way they approach the coverage of news events
  5. Remember they are subject to the laws of any country they work in
  6. Always be aware of the codes of conduct observed by their employers and clients and act appropriately when working on their behalf
  7. Treat people they meet in the course of their work with respect and dignity, giving special consideration to anyone suffering the results of war, crime or other difficulty or hardship
  8. Protect their own intellectual property and respect the property of others
  9. Defend media freedom, and the right to work in a fair and unfettered manner
  10. Feel able to refuse any work involving excessive or unnecessary risks to themselves or others

Ten clauses that sum up how we should behave rather than a set of absolute rules. This is important because we live in an age where there are lots of blurred lines and where each of us may well be doing a wide range of work for which each of these clauses will have greater or lesser significance. PR and hard news are very different and it is important that you read the Code with that in mind.
You will probably have questions about the wording and why it does and doesn’t feature X or Y and we are more than happy to answer those questions. We anticipate the most common query being about why it doesn’t have more specific rules and the answer there is in clause 6:
“Always be aware of the codes of conduct observed by their employers and clients and act appropriately when working on their behalf”
This is important because it refers to the IPSO Editor’s Code for those working for newspapers and other codes for magazines, broadcasting both in the UK and around the world.
According to our constitution this code can come fully into force once it has to be approved at a General Meeting and the next one is scheduled for the 4th of June in London.

A Gun To Our Heads – The new DACS Agreement, part 1

Andrew Wiard

In the first of a two-part blog post Andrew Wiard, a member of The BPPA’s Board, asks “What’s going on at DACS?”

Last year we all had to sign a new agreement, and if we didn’t – no annual payout at Christmas. So, why? Short answer, because DACS is at the bottom of a collecting society food chain, and they are all fighting like rats in a sack. Over our pictures, and our money.

Collecting societies – we photographers know that every year we get our DACS money, but not all of us know how or why. Here’s how it works. I’ll make this as simple as I can. In the beginning, way back in 1983, writers (through ALCS, the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society Ltd) and  publishers (through the PLS,  Publishers Licensing Society Ltd), established the CLA (Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd), jointly owned by them, for collective blanket licensing on their behalf. Which means authors and other right holders do not issue licences individually or directly, instead the CLA charges clients a one-off fee for a licence to make multiple copies of multiple works, without identifying any of the copyright owners.  So what are we talking about here? Essentially, the photocopying of books and magazines, though there are also other sources of income such as cable retransmission of TV programmes. Which all fall into the category of so-called ‘secondary’ rights. We exercise our ‘primary’ rights directly, collecting societies only stepping in where it is impractical for us to do so. After paying a small amount of money to overseas right holders, CLA then gives the lot to writers and publishers. So what about us then? We photographers said hang on a minute, we are copyright holders too. Eventually the CLA gave us our share through the DACS (the Design and Artists Copyright Society Ltd) payback scheme. Though with only an 8% cut – think that’s because we were late to the party.

Why not newspapers you might ask? Because they set up their own society, the NLA (Newspaper Licensing Agency), paying out to the newspapers, who then pay their freelance contributors any money they think they might owe. Or not, as is usually the case. Anyone remember getting an NLA payout at Christmas? Which is where all the recent fighting started, and that needs a blog all to itself, but briefly, authors were furious at not getting their share of the NLA money. And then a lot of magazine publishers jumped ship from the CLA to join the NLA instead, now re-branded NLA Media Access. After all, why share their (our) CLA money with writers? Or anybody? The ALCS began to fight NLA Media Access, while also fighting – I mean, of course talking – with the remaining CLA publishers over their shares from the CLA. Who have now decided to save money picking on DACS, by tearing up their agreement. That’s right – make the photographers pay! So what exactly are our brothers and sisters in the ALCS – the writers, photographers’ best friends – playing at? They are  joint owners, with the PLS, of the CLA! In the middle of this unholy mess, the CLA chief exec departed.

It would seem the CLA put a gun to the head of DACS, and so DACS put a gun to ours. Sign our new agreement here, or get no Christmas money.

Why so? What is this new agreement and how is it supposed to get DACS out of this hole? It requires us to sign over to DACS our secondary rights, exclusively. Actually a new agreement makes a lot of sense. Signing exclusive rights to DACS means they can stand up to the CLA, ALCS, PLS, NLA Media Access or anyone else trying to grab what’s ours, on firm, or at least much firmer, legal ground. It also means DACS can withstand scrutiny under both new EU directives and new UK legislation. Which any other organisation grabbing rights signed exclusively to DACS would – or rather should – be unable to do.

So what’s the problem? Why not just sign? The problem is that DACS is not just seeking the specific rights they already exercise on our behalf today, but ALL our secondary rights tomorrow. The distinction is crucial, see part two of this blog. I’m not the only one to object to this. BAPLA (The British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies) said, rightly, that the new agreement should be confined to only those secondary rights currently being exploited by DACS, i.e. photocopying/scanning, educational recordings and cable re-transmissions. If DACS is to administer any further rights that should be the subject of future consultation. What could be wrong with that? BAPLA is right. Now we photographers don’t always see eye to eye with BAPLA , and especially when it comes to DACS. Many BAPLA members think they’re the ones who should be taking the DACS money, and a big cut, before handing the rest to us. We think it’s our money ( and it is ) and that we should deal direct with DACS, unless we choose, as some of us do, to go through an agent. Big money at a stake here. But whatever schemes BAPLA may now be planning, with our pictures, we do have common cause when it comes to how and what DACS actually collects. We and our agents must insist on our right to license our photographs directly without a collecting society coming in between – unless, that is, that is totally impractical and absolutely unavoidable.

All we should have been asked to do last year was sign up to what DACS had already collected in previous years. Now what could be simpler than that? But DACS wouldn’t hear of it. They seem to think they don’t have to listen to us – or rather, while they make a great show of listening, they just don’t take any notice. The obvious objections were repeatedly made. They didn’t change a word.

So where does this leave us? As far as I can see the picture now looks like this. The ALCS doesn’t know if it has the legal firepower to fight NLA Media Access. The CLA doesn’t know if it has enough to fight them or their new magazine publishers either. DACS doesn’t know if it has enough to fight the CLA. But there’s one thing DACS knew for sure – we individual photographers did not have the time, energy or the money to take them to court over our payout. So who’s in charge here – us or them? The photographers who took the pictures, or the organisation that claims to represent us?

That money was collected in 2013. In withholding our money to enforce a new agreement for the future they were applying it retrospectively to money that already belonged to us. That was our money. They should have paid it without question and then sat down with all of us to negotiate – repeat, negotiate – the new agreement.

Instead, when the CLA put a gun to the head of DACS, DACS put a gun to ours.

Why all this really does matter? – see Part Two.