© Thomas Hawk
Thomas Hawk’s images are being used by police to pursue Oakland looters:
“I recognized several of the photographs that the Oakland PD had released as my own photos that I’d taken the night of the riots and had posted to my own Flickr account. I was never contacted by the Oakland PD regarding their use or distribution by Oakland PD. It’s interesting to see law enforcement taking photos by citizen media and using them this way.”
Under Creative Commons (which these images were) there is no problem with anyone, including police, “to copy, distribute and transmit the work” provided they attach attribution. Unfortunately, the Oakland Police Department didn’t name Hawk as the photographer, seemingly passing the images off as their own.
Here’s the San Francisco Chronicle article in which Hawk found his photographs.
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July 16, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Robert Gumpert
Police always use the journalist’s material. As long as it was published and there for public conception, it’s been allowed. Protection, such as it is, of a journalist’s material has to do with the out-takes, the non public material. It is hardly surprising that the Oakland police, or any police, would use Flicker a rather public website where photos are “published”. Did they hack is account? Were his images retricked in who could view them? If not, Mr. Hawks images where published and available. The web, as so often has been said, is not a place for privacy. Should Mr Hawk’s have gotten paid for use of his images in the Chronicle or other publications? Probably yes. But on both the publication issue and the issue of police going after media’s materials, citizens who see themselves as journalists need to know it is not just collecting information that you see, or read and then post – it is living with the results for you, the people you have photographed or written about, and society. The police are saying the people in Mr. Hawks images are looters but who knows? There is nothing in the images that show them doing anything other than carrying material things or being in a crowd. Posting/publishing the images means conclusions will be made and that is on the journalist.