• Metro and the little duckies

    I see RedMum’s photography has been picked up by Metro recently, but not in the fairest of ways…

    One of her pictures was used on the front cover of the 12th October issue of the Dublin freesheet Metro but without permission, credit or payment. There’s little denying that it’s her picture and hopefully she’ll keep us all up to date on what Metro have to say for themselves and whether they’re willing to pay up or apologise.

    On the other side of the same coin, Darragh has been taking issue with the article the pictures were used for.
    He’s saying that the appearence of the article in question is coincidental, given that he posted this just two days previously; which obviously implies that his piece has been lifted without credit too…
    I’ve got to disagree with Darragh on this one; his blog post simply asks what happened to the ducks and suggests people contact him/the site if they’ve come across one. The article on the other hand gives examples of the distance travelled by the ducks and references dowehaveyourduck.com; a site set up to track them.
    I fail to see the similarities beyond the basic topic of ducks (and the fact that the headline/subject share two words); the blog post doesn’t cite the examples used in the article nor does it cite the website mentioned. It’s entirely possible that the writer saw the blog post, got inspired and decided to look into it further but as long as the research is his own (and I can’t see why it is not) then he doesn’t need to credit his muse or justify the existance of his article in any way.
    I think it’s important to remember that in this day and age the first person to mention or point out something doesn’t instantly become the owner of the idea or point of view. If they ask a question and a newspaper article answers it, they’re not being ripped off. Generally, it’s only if their actual work, words or ideas are taken without credit (like with RedMum) that issue should be taken in my opinion