Does BBC violate copyrights via Twitter?

Recently the BBC caused a stir, because it would have violated the copyrights on photos of riots in England.  BBC showed pictures of the riots in Tottingham and noted that they were from Twitter. However, the names of the photographers (and thus the copyright holders) were missing and no permission was asked from the photographers.

BBC’s response to the complaint:

“Twitter is a social networking platform, which is available to most people who have a computer, and therefore any content on it is not subject to copyright laws as it is already in the public domain. The BBC is aware of copyright issues and is careful to abide by these laws.”

It is not very clear what the BBC wants to say, but it looks like the BBC is saying there are no copyrights because the pictures are spread in the public domain. One could wonder whether this argument is correct. Maybe Twitters terms of use could give us some answers. In these terms, the user gives permission to Twitter to make Tweets (including links to photos) available to the rest of the world, but the user owns the content. Therefore, it seems most likely that Twitter users grant permission to Twitter to publish tweets, but the Twitterer retains all copyrights to their own texts and photographs. If this is indeed the case, this means that the BBC should maybe look twice at its response.

Read more about copyright and Twitter on Future of Copyright:

- Copyright on Twittering

Reference: Pigsonthewing.org.uk