When an earthquake registering 7.0 on the Richter scale hit Haiti in January 2010, Daniel Morel hit the streets. A native Haitian and professional new photographer who has shot for The Associated Press, Morel spent the ensuing hours capturing images of dazed Port-au-Prince residents, many covered in dirt and blood, amid the rubble. Eager to share his shots with the world—but with phone lines down—Morel turned to Twitter and a related service called Twitpic to post 13 photos online that showed the havoc wreaked by the quake.
Before long, The Washington Post , ABC, CBS, and CNN had picked up Morel’s photos, which ultimately earned him World Press Photo foundation awards. One problem, according to Morel: Those media outlets didn’t have licenses to use the photos, nor did Agence France Press (AFP), the agency that, Morel says, passed the images along after grabbing them from the Twitter account of a Dominican Republic resident who claimed they were his. The upshot: Morel’s quake photos are at the center of a case that could test the limits of copyright law in an age of social media.
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