19 March 2014Copyright

South African copyright activists accused of infringing copyright

A South African organisation dedicated to championing IP rights has come under fire for allegedly using a copyrighted image on its website without permission.

The South African Federation Against Copyright Theft (SAFACT), which aims to highlight awareness of online piracy including music and film theft, has been accused of stealing and doctoring a photo used on the Reuters newswire.

SAFACT reported yesterday, March 18, that an Internet uploader had been arrested in Cape Town and accused of uploading a film to torrent site The Pirate Bay.

However, the image accompanying the piece was allegedly taken from a Reuters story from April last year about the arrest of a hacker in Australia.

The hacker belonged to LulzSec, a hacking group that has claimed responsibility for various high-profile infiltrations.

SAFACT did not credit the photo, which showed a police officer leading a hacker away, and had doctored the writing on the back of the officer’s uniform.

It removed the words “Australian Federal” so that it just read “Police.”

Under its terms of use on its official website Reuters says all content provided on the site is owned by or licensed to Thomson Reuters and “protected by US and international” copyright laws.

“The Thomson Reuters content may not be reproduced, transmitted or distributed without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters,” it adds.

SAFACT and Reuters did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

However, SAFACT told HTXT, an African news website, that it would “never intentionally infringe” another company’s IP rights and that its website was in the process of being redesigned.

It added that its web-designer Triloqtech would have been trusted to ensure the use of company images only.

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