A United States court ruled that “publishing something on Twitter is not the same as relinquishing ownership,” Time.com reported. The decision allows photographer Daniel Morel to continue his lawsuit against Agence France-Presse for not crediting or paying him for photos he took of “the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake” and posted on Twitter.
According to Time.com, Morel’s photos were picked up and republished by “AFP, Newsweek and other news agencies who improperly credited them to Lisandro Suero, a Dominican Republic citizen who had illegally copied the pics before selling them as his own to AFP and other organizations.” Morel sued the organizations, but AFP stated that republishing was legal because he lost copyright exclusivity by posting the pictures on Twitter.
AFP reportedly posted the photos on “an online photo database called Image Forum, which it uses to market and distribute its photographs,” the judge — William H. Pauley — wrote. The photos were then “transmitted them to Getty, an image licensing company.”