In a landmark Twitter copyright case, a Federal judge has found in favour of freelance photographer, who argued that Agence France-Presse (AFP), as well as The Washington Post, had infringed on his copyright by distributing images he had uploaded to Twitter.
The case involves French freelance photographer Daniel Morel, who was in Haiti during the 2010 earthquake and posted 13 iconic images of the aftermath via Twitpic.
He then announced on his Twitter account that he had “exclusive earthquake photos” and linked to the photos. Shortly thereafter, another Twitter user posted copies of the photographs to his Twitpic account, and falsely indicated on Twitter that he owned the copyright law in the photos.
The AFP obtained the photos from this Twitpic account and made them available to Getty images. In 2011 Morel sued both AFP and the Washington Post for distributing and selling his images without permission but AFP’s argument was that uploading pictures to Twitter/Twitpic granted third parties a broad licence to exploit this content.
However, Morel’s lawyers have argued that AFP had violated the Copyright Act of 1976, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Lanham Act. Morel also brought the claims against Getty Images, which has a worldwide distribution deal with AFP, and a range of other media organisations.
In this week’s landmark decision, the judge found that AFP and The Washington Post had infringed on the photographer’s copyright, saying that the Twitter terms of service states that users retain their rights to the content they post, with the exception of the licence granted to Twitter and its partners, thereby rebutting AFP’s claim that Twitter intended to confer a license on it to sell Morel’s photographs.
However, the court declined to rule on whether the infringement was willful and left the question of willfulness, which will determine how much in damages the defendants will have to pay to Morel, for a jury to decide.