AFP, Getty to cough up $1.2 million for using Twitter photos without permission

Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Getty Images have been reportedly ordered by a US district judge to pay a total of 1.2 million dollars in compensation to photographer Daniel Morel for taking his copyrighted images off Twitter and using them for commercial purpose

The two news organizations were found liable for willful violation of the Copyright Act in the beginning of the year, but now have been finally ordered to pay the compensation

According to The Verge, an AFP editor found several photos of the 2010 Haiti earthquake on Twitter, which were originally captured by Morel, and distributed them to Getty, which then spread to multiple news organizations including The Washington Post, CBS, ABC and CNN

Many of those publications, including The Washington Post, have since settled with Morel for undisclosed amounts

The report said that the AFP had previously argued that the photos were open to commercial reuse, but Twitter’s own policy allows sharing or ‘retweeting’ of images but does not grant the right to use them commercially

Morel hoped that such thing never happens to any of them and it was a victory for all artists and all copyright holders, the report added.