Website of national broadcasting company steals an image from a blogger

[Wooglah]

Here is an interesting situation: Broadcasting media uses your photo on their website without credits or anything. Even worse, it's the public broadcasting company with national licence (not a local one, or privately held). Even worse, it's a photo of your own personal passport, taken from your own blog, and used in the article about - illegal (false) passports!

How did that "reporter" found the image? By using google - it's first result if you search for new biometric passports in Serbian language.

Worst thing, after all this mentioned above is - image was under CC BY-NC-SA 3, so... everything would be OK if they just credited the author. And when that blogger contacted the author of that article via comment, his response was moderated (not approved) and image was credited as "Creative commons" and not him...

In my not-legal-not-precise-not-cool translation of article 145. of criminal law of Serbia you can see:

(1) He who publishes recording, portrait, photography, film or phonograph of personal kind without consent of author or person depicted, that means person who is recognizable on photography or film or who's voice is recorded on phonograph, or another person who has rights to that recording, and by doing that breaks that person's privacy, will be sentenced to one year in prison or financial payment .

that just like in US, you need model release (part about person depicted) if person is recognizable and permission from author if you want to use the image. Since the author is person depicted, and no one asked him or used the image according to the licence... he is now looking for lawyer. Someone else might back on this, but this person just happens to be one of well known bloggers in Serbian blogosphere, journalist for the most popular IT magazine here (and most popular monthly magazin in any category!) and he is also writing for the only e-magazine dedicated to GNU and Linux.

There is a google translation of the page, but I did not understand the half of it and I know both languages, lol... http://translate.google.com/translat...-bogati-kradu/ Technology is not really ready for retail

Original is here: http://blog.urosevic.net/2009/04/16/...-bogati-kradu/

This is where "creative commons" credited as author is:
http://www.rts.rs/page/stories/ci/st...88%D0%B0+.html (you dont have to know Serbian to read that under the photo and see it's nor siluethe or generic data but someone's real passoport - his, originaly published here - http://blog.urosevic.net/2008/10/10/...os-akomplised/)

[daft_biker]

It's all Greek to me but I wish you luck in your quest

[Wooglah]

Well, its not my personal quest, it is about friend of mine, but thanx.
We (the blogosphere) are spreading the word, and he (photographer in question) is looking for a lawyer who will represent his interests VS the company

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by daft_biker

It's all Greek to me but I wish you luck in your quest

Its actually Serbian

While I dont see why the broadcaster wouldnt follow proper copyright protocols, it is kinda silly to post your own passport online.

[Wooglah]

Of course it is

Thing is, we now have new passports with biometric microchips instead of old plain passports, and he was writing a blog post about how he got one (think writing about taking passport from Vogon administration, and you'll know why did he write about it). Now, including the image of his own passport was at least silly, if not something else but it was his decision. It does not have anything with them not respecting the licence and the author.

It should be noted that he also had image of closed passport, just a front cover... if they took that one, almost no one could claim he is the author of photo... so, one more evidence that you really need to be stupid to steal free (CC) photo...

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by Wooglah

(think writing about taking passport from Vogon administration, and you'll know why did he write about it)

You have NO idea how much that made me laugh.

Ah, vogons...

[candleman]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

Ah, vogons...

hahahaa.. i see you share my affection.

i usedto work with a Vogon.. seriously.
when she left the manager even said "for the last 30 years you've been a real pain in the butt" ...no kidding.
my cubicle is still within earshot of one of the more annoying vogons.. i'm forced to listen to her poetic music every morning that she gets in those slideshow e-mails.

anyway,
*sigh*


good luck with that Wooglah.
i'd never post even my drivers license online, let alone my passport.
but each to their own.

[jdepould]

They wouldn't need a model release in the U.S., but they would need to pay for it. Of course, in the U.S. it's also illegal to reproduce a passport.