Misused Photograph... is it Copyright infringement?

What is the name of your state? Washington

I submitted a weather photograph to a news website (KOMOTV.com) to be posted on a viewer’s gallery and all it said was that "If you have a great weather-related digital photo, we'd love to see it! Send it to [email protected] . We might put it on air as well!” Therefore, I submitted a photo and it was placed in the viewer’s gallery. Well a while back, I noticed that the top banner on the homepage of their website looked a lot like the photograph I had submitted. Upon closer inspection it turned out that, it was my photo. It was manipulated to fit the banner and I was never told they were going to use my photo for that purpose nor did they in any way get my consent to do so. They did not use the photo for commercial purposes; they only put it on their site. I am wondering if they are committing copyright infringement and if it is grounds to try and work out a financial compromise. Thanks.

I am wondering if they are committing copyright infringement and if it is grounds to try and work out a financial compromise.

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It's possible that they are infringing, but you can't really tell from the facts given. When you submitted the pic, was there any kind of verbiage that stated that by giving them the photo they could do what they wanted with it? That verbage would defeat any claim of infringement, and I would be suprised if such verbage wasn't there. Even if it wasn't, a court could find an "implied license" to use the picture; then the question would be whether or not they exeeded the scope of the license.

But, in any event, it doesn't really matter if there is infringement or not. Unless you can show how you were "damaged" by their use of the picture in a (allegedly) unauthorized manner, there is no "financial compromise" to make. I guess you could try and get them to stop using the picture, but that's about the best you could hope for -- and if they said "no," then what -- do you hire a lawyer? Since you don't have any damages, you'll have to pay the lawyer out-of-pocket, and you really won't be able to recover anything from them even IF there is infringement found.