NEWS RELEASE 22 February 2000 The fable of the Ant and the Chip or how copyright problems can arise One day last summer, Michael Marten chairman of the Science Photo Library (SPL) noticed that one of his company's images, a picture of an ant with a microchip in its jaws, taken by the photographer Andrew Syred, had been published in the Daily Telegraph and miscredited to another photographer - Ross Parry. The photograph was accompanying an article about the school of engineering at the University of Huddersfield, which had just received a £2 million grant for research and development of a nanotechnology unit. The ant image had been used to draw attention to the article and the wording implied that the picture had been taken at the University. Ant and microchip by Andrew Syred At SPL, alarm bells began to ring. This image appears in SPL's catalogue and is exclusive to the library. A researcher was put on the case and began by calling the Daily Telegraph to find out who had supplied the picture. He was told that it had been received via Ross Parry, a news agency in West Yorkshire. Ross Parry said he received it electronically from the Yorkshire Post and as it bore no copyright information, he assumed it had been obtained for publication by the University of Huddersfield who in turn, had supplied it to the Yorkshire Post. Ross Parry sent through a list of the newspapers which had received the image and which included Reuters. Armed with this information, SPL was able to trace use of the ant & chip picture in the Yorkshire Post, The Sun, The Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail and procure payment. Believing the picture to be copyright free, Reuters had circulated the image around the world on its 'hot picture' site. On hearing that the image was copyright, Reuters immediately 'killed' the image but confirmed that in the four hours it had been available, it may have been picked up by hundreds of thousands of its subscribers. Reuters was unable to provide an accurate idea of where the picture had been used. However, after contacting all its agents, SPL managed to pinpoint several overseas users - among them El Pais (Spain) and Der Spiegel (Germany), the Adelaide Advertiser and Singapore Straits Times. Further investigation into the source of the error, revealed that the head of the engineering department at the University of Huddersfield had seen the image in a magazine and liked it so much he had put it in his collection. SPL eventually agreed to a settlement of £1550 from the university, for unauthorised use of the image. "It's impossible to say how many times the picture was used," claims Michael Marten, of SPL, "as we can only go by what we found out ourselves. "Copyright abuse is a major problem in our industry. Larger libraries have full-time staff whose job it is just to follow up on unreported uses of pictures, but smaller libraries like SPL has very little protection. All we can do is take action when we spot illegal use and defend our rights vigorously." The Science Photo Library is the world's leading photo agency specialising in science, medicine and technology, with over 120,000 images in its collection. Independent, privately owned and the only one of its kind in Britain, SPL is renowned for its high quality picture bank, created by photographers, illustrators, scientists and medical specialists. For more information contact Maria Storey Maria Storey, Marketing & Communications Director, Science Photo Library, 327-329 Harrow Road, London W9 3RB Tel: 020 7432 1100 Fax: 020 7286 8668 www.sciencephoto.com Note to editors: for more details or to arrange an interview contact Patricia Lotery or Fiona Davis-Coleman at PoLo PR, 30 Shrewsbury Avenue, London SW14 8JZ Tel: 0181 876 4242 Fax: 0181 876 8900 e-mail: info@polopr.co.uk To obtain photographs: please send a request by e-mail to: maria.storey@sciencephoto.co.uk back to Press Releases