Copyrighted Images and Highlight on the Front Page - Media Will Be Removed | Forum Topic

To avoid copyrighted images ending up on our front page (meaning in the top 5 stories or in the editors picks), we are implementing a policy that means if your story makes it to one of these slots, and you have a copyrighted image or a copyrighted video attached to it, then your image(s) and/or video(s) will be removed and if a replacement cannot be found, then your story will have no media attached to it.

This ultimately means that your story will not be able to make it to the number one slot, even if it has the most number of recommendations and reads, as the top story must have media to stay in that slot.

A copyrighted image, is one that you do not have permission to use, meaning it came from a news site that you highlighted from, or from a major news organization, or even from someone's Flickr account that they did not give you permission to use.

Here is a piece about copyrighted images as well.

For Videos it is the same deal; if a video is uploaded by a content creator's own account, for example the BBC uploads a BBC video, then it's ok to use it. Also if someone takes a video of the hurricane in their backyard, then it's ok to use it, but other than that, it probably isn't ok.

We hope this helps clear some things up for you. Please remember that we have an extensive database of photos and videos as well that you can always use any media from, so it would be a good idea to check there if you can't find any media from other sources.

In addition, to avoid posts with too much highlighted material being on our front page as well, any posts that do not have a sufficient amout of original content then it will be removed from the top five and will not be chosen for an editor's pick. NowPublic encourages members to write their pieces as 80% original content to 20% Highlighted text.

We just want to avoid material that is mostly other's work appearing on our front page, and we want to reward our members who take the time to write a sufficient amout of original content.

Thanks!

I guess then for the most part Now Public will be devoid of pictures

I still don't understand completely. Are we safe to use the U Tube images that we access through Crowd Power? Do we need permission to use those. Are the only 'safe' images to use are the NP files? and our own of course?

I'll do my best to answer this, but Tina or Jordan do know a bit more about this than me.

Some YouTube videos are safe to use and some are copyrighted. For example, if someone posts a video of a BBC news report on their personal YouTube account, then that is not ok for us to use, but it's copyrighted and that person doesn't have permission from the BBC to display their content on YouTube in the first place.

If the BBC posts a news report on their own YouTube channel, then it's perfectly fine for us to use as they own the copyright to their own material.

This is the same for any news organization.

As for photos, it is not ok to use photos just because they are on the internet. Unless a photo has a 'public domain' license attached to it or a 'royalty free' license attached to it, that means it is copyrighted and owned by someone else. This usually includes all photos from other media organizaitons, so it's not a good idea to take the photo accompanying the news story that you are highlighting from.

Photos that are released by the government are ok however, as are mug shots and missing persons photos.

Traliers on YouTube are ok, unless they are being used in a negative way and then they are not allowed to be reprinted elsewhere on the web (so for example if you were slamming the movie 'Saving Private Ryan', you would not be allowed to post their trailer with your article.)

I hope this helps a bit, I know it's really confusing, but I'll ask the other staff to see if they can add to it to make it clearer.

As always, if you have questions about a specific piece of media, please feel free to ask us and we'll do our best to help you.

I still don't understand completely. Are we safe to use the U Tube images that we access through Crowd Power? Do we need permission to use those. Are the only 'safe' images to use are the NP files? and our own of course?

Since Youtube does not take steps to actively police copyright on its own site, of course our Crowd Power tool cannot do so, either, relying as it does on what Youtube is able to tell it. This is where human eyes come into play, and this is what separates us from the crowd: responsible media attribution.

What about an image in a press release, the same one that will turn up in all the morning papers.

Is that okay or does that belong to the PR company etc releasing it?

This post has been removed.

Hi Amy,

I'm still not getting an exact handle on this. Firstly with images, I tend to look in Wikipedia/Wikimedia first, since their images come under "Wikimedia Commons" and are ok for anyone to use.

In your example above though; doesn't the video of the hurricane then become the copyright of the person who took the video? Why would that be ok to use but it wouldn't be ok, if instead, it was a photograph?

Over the years, I've looked at and tried to understand Copyright Law, but legalese gets the better of me and I give up trying to understand. I really don't want to do the wrong thing and I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I think we need an actual list in two columns headed with Dos and Do Nots.

Eg. DOs Use images from Wikimedia; Use Now Public repository.

DO NOT
Use videos from YouTube, unless permission is granted; Do not use images from online news sources.

Sorry to be a PITA but I know I'm not the only one struggling for copyright understanding.
Thanks in advance, ~ Swan

Barry ORegan

at 21:54 on August 27th, 2009