On January 14, 2013, a New York court judged in favor of the Haitian photographer Daniel Morel in a case against the Agence France Presse, who posted on Twitter, without Morel’s consent, a photograph he took during the 2010 earthquakes.

Morel sued the media organizations who published his photographs, in particular The Washington Post, which refused to settle the matter amicably. (Morel also sued Getty Images, but last week’s verdict is unrelated to that case.)

For the time being, Morel could be awarded more than a million dollars as a result of this first lawsuit against AFP. This type of conflict among professional (and amateur) photographers publishing their images on social networks could become widespread. Media organizations are required to obtain the rights to an image before publishing them, but after a helicopter crashed in London last week, several agencies and news outlets used photographs without first contacting their owners.

The Morel versus AFP case could lead social networks to change their terms of use. Instagram already had to cancel plans to sell their users’ photographs. But for how long?

Michel Puech