$1.2M Twitter copyright award

In a landmark case, a photographer was awarded $1.2 million for unauthorized use of photos he posted on Twitter.

“A jury has awarded photographer Daniel Morel $1.2 million in damages after deciding that Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Getty Images willfully violated his copyright.”
— PDN

“This landmark verdict comes four years after Morel’s images of the 2010 Haiti earthquake were distributed without his permission by the two stock agencies and attributed to Lisandro Suero, who stole his images from his Twitpic account.”
— Lindsay Comstock, Photoforward (WPPI)

“The case is one of the first to address how images that individuals make available to the public through social media can be used by third parties for commercial purposes.”
— Joseph Ax, Reuters, Nov 22, 2013

“[The judge] ruled that Morel did not forfeit his copyright when he published his images to Twitter.”
— Lindsay Comstock, Photoforward (WPPI)

“The ruling shows that even on social-media platforms, photographers can maintain the right of ownership to their photographs.”
— Eva Recinos, Mashable, Nov 23, 2013

The case is Agence France-Presse v. Morel, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 10-02730.

Sources: Mashable, PDN, Photoforward, BJP. Image credit: .