АЈМ: Unauthorized downloading of author’s photos is a crime

In order to improve and protect the copyrights of photojournalists, representatives of АЈМ and members of the Section of Photojournalists at АЈМ held a working meeting with prosecutors from the Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office Skopje.

“The increasing trend of unauthorized using photos and gross violation of the copyright of photojournalists by some media and other commercial entities in the country is a big problem, and therefore we must work together in the future to eradicate this practice” – said Petr Stojanovski, representative of the Section of Photojournalists at AJM.

At the meeting in the Public Prosecutor’s Office, final verdicts for copyright violation were discussed, for which the prosecutor’s office took ex officio actions in the past. The representatives of AJM indicated that it is important that in the future the PPO has a proactive attitude in protecting the copyright of media workers.

“Copyright is considered one of the most important rights in the performance of the professional duty of journalists and media workers in general, who through their work create content, regardless of whether it is author’s photos, videos or text. Precisely because of this, journalists, as well as photojournalists and videographers, should be recognized as authors of the content they create, and if these rights are violated, the perpetrators should be held accountable”, emphasized Dragan Sekulovski, executive director of AJM.

The representatives of AJM Dragan Sekulovski and Milan Spirovski, Ivan Breshkovski, lawyer, Tomislav Georgiev, Petr Stojanovski, and Robert Atanasovski from the Section of Photojournalists at AJM were present at the meeting, as well as the Basic Public Prosecutor Gavril Bubevski and the prosecutors Iskra Hadji Vasileva and Darko Jakimovski as and Biljana Arsovska, the person responsible for public relations at the PPO Skopje.