Arts: Is BuzzFeed Using Photographs Illegally?

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Brow Beat Is BuzzFeed Using Photographs Illegally? By Jeremy Stahl Posted Tuesday, May 01, 2012, at 06:13 PM ET Yesterday, the Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal published a piece asking how BuzzFeed acquires the rights to the many, many photos they use for their explosively viral photo lists. The answer: Generally, they don't. BuzzFeed does pay Reuters, the AP, and Getty for rights to their photo libraries. But many BuzzFeed images are found not in those libraries, but on sites like Tumblr, Pinterest, and 4chan. Those sites are protected from copyright lawsuits under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which says websites are not responsible for unlicensed images published by their users. BuzzFeed, like Slate, is not immune from lawsuits under DMCA. As a consequence, BuzzFeed proprietor Jonah Peretti defends his site's use of copyrighted images by arguing that they're protected under "fair use." Fair use is a notoriously murky legal term. To explain the fair use exception as Peretti understands it, Madrigal quotes Wikipedia: To justify the use [of copyrighted material] as fair, one must demonstrate how it either advances knowledge or the progress of the arts through the addition of something new. A key consideration is the extent to which the use is interpreted as transformative, as opposed to merely derivative. Peretti believes that BuzzFeed's photo lists are transformative. He and Madrigal discuss a set of photos of disappointed animals, none of which is listed with any credit information. By putting the list in a particular order and adding funny captions to the photos, Peretti says, BuzzFeed has met the fair use standard of "fundamentally ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Spitzer: The Founding Fathers Not Only Supported Mandates, They Imposed Them. Take That, Scalia! Malcolm Gladwell Explains Why College Football Should Be Banned YKK: The Mysterious Japanese Company Behind the World's Best Zippers	Advertisement
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