Our photographers in Chile after the earthquake

Just wanted to write a quick note about our photographers in Chile after hearing the news about the massive earthquake there last night. Chile is used to earthquakes and is well prepared, but the huge size of this earthquake is rare, and we hope all is well with our photographers there, particularly Ricardo Carrasco Stuparich, who lives very close to the epicentre in Concepción. I emailed him last night when I first heard of the earthquake but have not had a reply yet.

I have vistied Chile three times, and it is one of my favorite countries. I hope to take my family down there to experience its extraordinary beauty sometime in the future. Wishing you all the best! Hasta Luego!

A beach near Concepcion, Chile 2001

UPDATE: I have just heard from Ricardo, and he and his family are all fine, but he says the situation looks bad in other areas.

BEWARE! Living Science Competition IMAGE RIGHTS GRAB!

Yesterday a new Image Rights Grab competition was launched by the UK Department for Innovation, Business and Skills. Reading the small print in the terms and conditions for photo submissions to their Living Science Competition on the 'Science, so What?' website, we find that:

By entering, all entrants licence News International, the Department for Innovation, Business and Skills, and their authorised representatives, a worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free licence to publish and use each entry (including all images and text submitted by the entrant as part of the entry process) in any and all media (including, without limitation, print and online) in perpetuity.

This means that News International (The Times, The Sun, The Sunday Times, The News Of The World), the Department for Innovation, Business and Skills, and 'their authorised representatives' (ie anyone else they choose), can use your images for anything, for all time, without any payment to the photographer.

Following the huge success of our campaign to persuade Great British Life and Archant Publishing to change the terms and conditions of their website and competitions, we now ask our loyal supporters to help us in publicising this new underhand Rights Grab on photographers' images.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
If you have your own website, blog, newsgroup, whatever, please copy and paste this link into your site:

<a http://fairtradephotographer.blogspot.com/2010/02/beware-living-science-competition-image.html">Living Science Competition</a>

What will happen is that anyone searching for info about the Living Science Competition is likely to see a link to this blog and be warned about the Image Rights Grab attempt.

Does this have any effect? Our previous campaign rose as high as the number 3 search result on Google for the search term 'Great British Life' and as a direct result Great British Life and Archant Publishing liaised with Fair Trade Photographer in rewriting their terms and conditions to make them fair to photographers.

Great British Life do the right thing!

Screenshot from the Great British Life website:

IMPORTANT: This blog page is an update of Fair Trade Photographer's campaign to publicise the formerly unreasonable terms and conditions for photographers on Archant's Great British Life website. To view the original blog post there is a screenshot here.

UPDATE: 25 February 2010
As a result of the support of numerous photographers for this campaign, along with support from The British Institute of Professional Photography, Copyright Action and Pro Imaging's Bill of Rights, Archant Publishing and the Great British Life team have revised their terms and conditions to take account of our concerns.

Whereas the previous terms gave Archant a royalty-free license to use any images uploaded to their website for anything they wished, without payment, the new terms state:

3. Use of Images

By submitting a photograph You grant Great British Life worldwide license to reproduce, publicly display, distribute, publicly perform and create derivative works from Your submitted materials on the Great British Life websites.

If submitted as a competition entry, in all media, in connection with the administration, judging and promotion of the competition and future competitions. We shall have the right to grant sublicenses to the press and publicity agents in connection with the promotion of the competition. Full credit will be given to You in connection with image usage.

You will retain copyright and if we wish to use your photograph for any other purpose Archant will ask your permission and obtain your consent before doing so. Any commercial opportunities that arise following the publication of the submitted photograph will be notified to You, and You will be free to negotiate terms independently.

Fair Trade Photographer considers these terms reasonable, and are grateful for the Great British Life team's co-operation in listening to our concerns about photographer's rights to their images, and the right to receive fair payment for the commercial use of their images.

Archant said to us:

Archant are always happy to work with any groups or individuals, if they have concerns in relation to our websites or any of the terms and conditions.

Archant's magazines provide many opportunities for British photographers to gain recognition and reasonable payment for their creative endeavours and we look forward to working with them in future in promoting the Great British photos of our many talented contributing photographers.

The new terms and conditions can be viewed here.

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I now have to bring a new Rights Grab competition to your attention, this time courtesy of the UK government Department for Innovation, Business and Skills and News International. Please take a moment to read about their Living Science Competition Image Rights Grab and find out how you can help.