VegNews photography scandal

[Browncoat]

VegNews is a popular vegan lifestyle magazine. They've been involved in a bit of a public relations nightmare recently, as it was discovered that they were using stock photos that contained meat and altered the images that appeared in their publications to appear meatless.

As you can imagine, the vegan community was pretty upset. The company has issued a public apology and have said they will not do this again. However, I think photographers have a right to be upset about all of this too.

Most magazines use stock photo sites because it's cheap. But I wonder how many photographers would want to know that their photos could be used to deceive someone, or that the end-user is doctoring them? Also, that this company did all of this in order to save a buck and not hire a pro to do authentic vegan meals.

It also appears that now VegNews is now going to crowdsource their photography, and try to get readers to submit photos...still trying to avoid paying someone to do the job.

Thoughts? Here are some other links to the story:

Quarrygirl.com

New York Times

[gturner]

Another one of these fake rages about not much.
(sure it is important to the power veggies, but as far as making the world go round, this is at the bottom of the list.)

[Browncoat]

Congrats. You've managed to completely miss the point. Well done.

[gturner]

What was the point? I read the NYTimes article.
Picture of lettuce minus steak = pic of lettuce.

Sorry for being so deliberately flippant, but this it is an event limited to a niche group who took 11 years to work out that they were being duped.

The company is apologizing the for the emotional scaring caused to readers, not the photographers right violations. We can't comment on those photo infringements with seeing the license VegNews purchased.

[candidrachel]

That's really cheeky using stockphotos and digitally airbrushing out the meat etc. Sounds like alot of companies penny pinching to save money. Trouble is they always get found out in the end.

I am a meat and dairy eater but I can understand how a vegan would get upset. It's almost saying that their way of life isn't that importand and so we can easily nab stock photos that look good and clone out the animal produce. No wonder the vegan community is angry! They pride themselves with not eating any animal products at all.

[zona5101]

I believe for the most part, when you sell your images to one of the stock houses you no longer have any say to what happens to it down the road. So as the photographer of a picture so altered,I might not like it, but I don't have any ability to stop it.

[gturner]

Originally Posted by candidrachel

I am a meat and dairy eater but I can understand how a vegan would get upset. It's almost saying that their way of life isn't that importand and so we can easily nab stock photos that look good and clone out the animal produce. No wonder the vegan community is angry! They pride themselves with not eating any animal products at all.

IF the market was big enough, it would support and industry of animal product free food photography.
If there wasn't then, there is now a huge gap in the market.

To me this is like using a picture of a non-kosher or non-halaal lamb chop on the packaging of a kosher or halaal product.
Does it really matter?

[Browncoat]

VegNews publishes a bi-monthly print magazine, and according to publicly available sources, has over 1 million visitors to its websites each month. They can afford to get photos of the real thing.

The bottom line is, the publishing/editorial industry has been sticking it to photographers for years and this is just another nail in the coffin. Now the company is going to create a photo bank and begin crowdsourcing photos from their reader base. So what is the fallout here?

VegNews issues a canned "We're sorry" corporate apology. Sure, they lose some of their base for this infraction, but they're still making a profit. The stock photo agency is completely blameless in this whole ordeal, and profits the most. Meanwhile, photographers get a poke in the eye and shortchanged yet again.

[OsmosisStudios]

Face
Palm

[Brian Mullins]

Originally Posted by Browncoat

The bottom line is, the publishing/editorial industry has been sticking it to photographers for years and this is just another nail in the coffin. Now the company is going to create a photo bank and begin crowdsourcing photos from their reader base. So what is the fallout here?

VegNews issues a canned "We're sorry" corporate apology. Sure, they lose some of their base for this infraction, but they're still making a profit. The stock photo agency is completely blameless in this whole ordeal, and profits the most. Meanwhile, photographers get a poke in the eye and shortchanged yet again.

I'm afraid you've got it wrong.. photographers have been throwing themselves at the publishing/editorial industry giving away their work for years, just to get published. I worked in the magazine business for 2 years as their chief of photography. We'd get email after email "giving" us photos and offering to shoot for free, just to get published.

Local news stations and newspapers ask for reader photos so they can post them up. This isn't about big bad corporate America screwing the little guy.. the little guy is putting himself in the stirrups and turning down the lube (sorry for the graphic visual there). You can't blame a company for finding a cheap or free, but legal, source of content then using it.

If you shoot and put your work on a stock site, then, as a photographer, you have little say in whats done with it once it's purchased. Crying wolf about photographers getting screwed really is disingenuous. We did it to ourselves - teaching people photography but not business. I'll be the first one to speak up when photographers are being taken advantage of or having their rights violated, but in this case, I cannot speak up as they were willing participants.

As far as the Vegans getting all up in arms, really? They would be shocked at the amount of work done on just about any national publication cover.