Guilty

April 12, 2009 by pmelcher.

If you thought that the money you had given to this or that photo trade organization was useful, think again. ASMP, APA, EP, PPA, WHNPA, SA, and all of the other siblings are guilty of the same crime. Silence. Chris Usher has lost his appeal after a seven year battle against Corbis and each of his 12,640 images lost will be compensated for a lousy $7.00 a piece.

(see previous post for more detailed explanation)

This ruling means that from now on, any agency, any magazine, any publisher will never have to worry about losing your photographs, since it will cost them peanuts to pay you back. It will be cheaper for them to trash them then returning them to you.

Also guilty are PDN, supposedly a trade news magazine, and other photography blogs, that are more interested in getting volumes of traffic to please their advertiser rather than report fairly on this industry.

They should all be put on the wall of shame for ignoring one of the longest and possibly important case in modern photography. Chris Usher was maybe crazy to take on the infinite cash Corbis but he did what he thought was a fair battle and lost. Not just because he couldn’t afford a legal team as powerful as the Bill Gates funded Corbis, but also because everyone ignore his battle, probably thinking it was a personal one.

In times where it is even more challenging to be a photographer than ever before, it is sad to see how helpless this industry has become, especially on the photographer’s side. It is sad to see how apathetic everyone is in face of challenges that will surely, one day, affect them too. Finally, it sad to see that, in the face of adversity, a photographer has no friends.

Posted in photojournalism, license, copyright, finance, transaction, news, law, editorial, corbis | Print | 4 Comments »