Lambeth's Liberal Democrat and Conservative councillors are usually desperate to hog the limelight. But they came over all shy when they saw their faces on our spoof film poster for 'Parking Suspects'. Could it be that they are embarrassed at having brought in unfair parking rules for everyone else and then arranging exemptions for themselves with free parking tickets? Under threat of legal action, we've been forced to cover up the faces of the Tory and Lib Dem councillors involved. It seems they'd rather you didn't know what they've been up to...

Pending legal advice of our own, we have decided to blank out their faces.
Lambeth Labour suspects that it is embarrassment rather than copyright law which has prompted Councillor Fitchett's complaint

Christopher Wellbelove who created the Lambeth Labour website said 'I was surprised to receive a threatening letter from the borough's solicitor, shortly after receiving an email from the Liberal Democrats secretary complaining about the feature.'

'Lambeth council is using public money to censor a perfectly legitimate use of images that are in the public domain, to highlight a key issue to a large number of local residents.'

The council is claiming that they own the copywrite for the images of the councillors and therefore these cannot be used without their permission. Any advice regarding this would be welcomed.

You can view parking suspects at http://www.lambethlabour.com/parking

i think you will find that the copyright belongs to the person who took the photo .. not the person in the photo. Did the council take the photos or has the council bought the copyight from the photographer. ?? i don't think 'public domain' applies to images.

Beryl - yes pretty much - copyright is incredibly complicated - but if the council have purchased photos etc., there may well be a breach. However, providing the stuff about the parking scam is true - there's no problem with naming the councillors, posting links to their websites or using lookalikees etc., in spoof posters/films....

Just because an image is in the 'public domain' it does not alter the legal status of the image. It remains the copyright of the person whom first created the image. However, most image makers are savvy enought to know about peppercorn licences which grant the owner of the image (which can ostensibly different from the generator), an extensive licence over the use of their images, once sold to the client. Most licences include the caveat to allow the image to remain with the owner until the end of the copyright period (currently life plus seventy-five years), at which point it then looses copyright status and truely enters the 'public domain', then it just gets insanely difficult.

However, I also think that if a valid political point is being made, than the use of the photo's of councillors who are in serious need of naming and shaming, then the images should be commandeered.

we have had some experience of this on the BB forum/guestbook and i have pm'd brief details to lambethlabour.