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Al-Arabiya, blogging and fair usage in the internet age

We received a complaint today from the Al-Arabiya News Channel concerning the use of a picture and quotes from a report without attribution. Regular readers of this blog will know we are in the habit of attributing and linking back to all excerpts from news sources cited.

This was an oversight on our part and the credits have now been added to the post.
We also try to provide picture credits when these are known. Al-Arabiya do not provide the name of the photgrapher that takes their pictures(s)on the website but if they supply the name it will of course be added.

We are not in the business of trying to steal photographers' and journalists' work. We believe the practice of citing content on blogs is fair usage where it links back to the original content and this is now standard practice on the internet. Nevertheless the corporate media has been trying to assert total control over its content on the internet but has not been able to successfully win this position in any court of law.

However, it is fair to say that we have often omitted to post the byline of many reports that we have linked to and will, as far as possible, supply this information in future. Al-Arabiya doesn't give a credit for their pics in the report we cited but if they wish to forward it to Gaza Solidarity we will certainly post it.

As members of the National Union of Journalists in the UK and of the International Federation we are committed to safeguarding the intellectual property of journalists and photographers. Unfortunately the corporate media isn't, and usually insists on journalists and photographers handing over those rights to the company that owns the media in which their work appears. Hopefully the trade unions at Al-Arabiya and elsewhere are fighting to wrest these rights from their employer and to receive payment for the re-purposing of their work.

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