It seems as though the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) is confused about the issue of ownership when it comes to images, video or audio posted some social media websites.
The CoJ was called out in a public tweet by the Managing Director of communication agency Cerebra for using an image without giving proper credit to the photographer.
@CityofJoburgZA @Qingqile_Wing who? You can’t publish an image without the credit to the photographer. That’s copyright infringement.
— Craig Rodney (@Craigrodney) June 21, 2016
The City replied to Rodney in a tweet, saying that every images that is posted onto the microblogging site was fair game, as it belongs to Twitter.
Every pic that’s on Twitter belongs to Twitter, not owner-says Twitter laws^TK https://t.co/e7FSLBEVLE
— City of Joburg (@CityofJoburgZA) June 21, 2016
The reality is that Rodney is somewhat correct. According to Twitter’s Terms of Service, the rights to the media is retained by the creator, but by posting it onto the site, you also grant Twitter the permission to use it.
According to Section 5 of Twitter’s T&C’s:
You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).
After some heated exchanges on the site, CoJ eventually credit photographer Andrew Cleland.
Apparently taken by Andrew Cleland, beauty #Joburg^TK pic.twitter.com/70Y8Btn8aU
— City of Joburg (@CityofJoburgZA) June 21, 2016
[Image – CC by 2.0/Earth Hour]