Your Nicked!

[vincegamer]

Reminds me of the Department of Homeland Security officers in my town who told someone at the library to stop looking at \"adult\" internet sites.

The patron complained. The library complained. The officers ended up with a few weeks suspension without pay.
These cops were probably concerned because you were photographing public transit.
I actually doubt Nexus owns the copyright to any of the posters put up there - if there is any such copyright. Locally the metro is a government affiliate and governments can\'t have copyrights.

I probably would have asked them to arrest me.

 

[Mr.S.Marbo]

I dug up the following:

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Section 62:

This section applies to—

(a) buildings, and

(b) sculptures, models for buildings and works of artistic craftsmanship, if permanently situated in a public place or in premises open to the public.

(2) The copyright in such a work is not infringed by—

(b) making a photograph or film of it

First I thought that would give you the right to take pictures. Appearantly it doesn\'t cover painting and murals though. Also even if it did I assume the murals could be regarded as temporary, and therefore again not covered. You weren\'t taking pictures of \"fixed\" sculptures were you? That is allowed.

You could have tried Section 29 or 30 - that it is legal to do \"fair copies\" of copyrighted material for reseach or private study, or for the purpose of a news report or for criticism or review. If you said it was for uni it may have added weight to this. Again though if the officer had \"reasonable belief\" that this was not true, or if you took \"more photo\'s than reasonable\" it could be considered unlawfull.

I guess it is possible for you to have been arrested but I doubt it would get anywhere in criminal court. Ch.48 details criminal (rather than civil) offences.

For a criminal offence they\'d have to show you were intending to sell, distribute or make available to the public what you took pictures of (that is if we are talking about art). I guess the police officer could have said he had reasonable grounds for believing you were taking pictures to distribute or sell on, but getting that to stick in a court seems pretty far fetched to me.

It seems a bit extreme. I think he \"could\" have arrested you but with no real chance of a conviction, you have to ask why??? Seems a bit stupid and petty. Incidentally it appears only officers of HM Revenue & Customs can \"seize\" the copyright material on the spot and not return it. Police seem to have to keep it and present it to the court.... Perhaps that\'s why he asked you to delete it - he had no powers to take it off you unless he made an arrest. Perhaps the threat of an arrest was just a bluff (knowing that an arrest would be a waste of time)?

Anyway take this with a pinch of salt I have no legal qualifications. To me it seems a bit extreme though and just a plain over-reaction and a bit crappy.

 

[spazzy]

Dauber, in which states could you do that in? ???

 

[james sequeira]

spazzy\'s getting ideas lol

 

[No Such Agency]

You have my sympathies for this utter bullshit.

They likely had zero grounds to arrest you, but they would have anyway, and your camera would be confiscated and never seen again (except maybe in some cop\'s camera bag). That\'s how it works.

 

[Ogrebane]

I cant agree with Vike tho. Every hill is worth dying on. Its our complaicency that allows others to rob us of our rights. get out there and take some more photos and let us know how it goes. Vince can probably help you with the bail.

 

[paintingploddy]

Thanks for all the love out there. It really makes me happy to see how respected my profession is.

My suggestion would be to now research the issue and call them on it if you are within your rights. It is up to you what point you go to in your objections, but you resist physically at your own risk. That said if they seize your camera and exceed their authority there are a number of remedies including a formal complaint through to a law suit.

Love Dauber\'s sense of humour, if there weren\'t murdering b$^%#$ds out there who have done exactly this. Great joke though, ha ha ha, I\'ll have to tell my family that one.

Oh, and remember we don\'t make the laws. Quite often we can be guilty of going over the line (everywhere from an inch to a mile) but did it ever occur they may have been responding to a particular complaint, and the legislation may have given them the power to do exactly what they did? (Anyone here a legal practitioner knowledgable in British law? can you assist)

Lastly a shop may be a public space, but the owner of the shop still retains the right to regulate what happens on their property be it shoplifting drinking or taking pictures.

 

[Hieronymus]

I wanted to say that you should have told him to go out and track down someone who is an actual threat to society instead of harassing easy prey like a university student. It may be that the cop was having an extraordinarily crappy day and took it out on you.

 

[Trevor]

Strikes me as being being rather unreasonable, but you aren\'t allowed to take pics in many galleries, so it could be a similar thing. I\'d be very interested to know what the actual legal answer is on this one.

 

[Dammekkos2]

Originally posted by paintingploddy
Thanks for all the love out there. It really makes me happy to see how respected my profession is.

My suggestion would be to now research the issue and call them on it if you are within your rights. It is up to you what point you go to in your objections, but you resist physically at your own risk. That said if they seize your camera and exceed their authority there are a number of remedies including a formal complaint through to a law suit.

Love Dauber\'s sense of humour, if there weren\'t murdering b$^%#$ds out there who have done exactly this. Great joke though, ha ha ha, I\'ll have to tell my family that one.

Oh, and remember we don\'t make the laws. Quite often we can be guilty of going over the line (everywhere from an inch to a mile) but did it ever occur they may have been responding to a particular complaint, and the legislation may have given them the power to do exactly what they did? (Anyone here a legal practitioner knowledgable in British law? can you assist)

Lastly a shop may be a public space, but the owner of the shop still retains the right to regulate what happens on their property be it shoplifting drinking or taking pictures.

\"Just following orders\" has long since been deemed an unacceptable defence for immoral behaviour. It\'s the law. Seriously though, you often hear about criminals that have great respect for police officers. Doing thier job, playing the game etc etc. It\'s the decent members of society that are unjustly trampled by the enforcers that tend to dislike them. My main problem is the rampant hypocracy running to the core of your institution.

 

[farseerlum]

you peacfully accept your arrest and be processed by the law.

that is how free men stay free. if you accept anything else you are handing over your rights.

if more people took the time to stand for their rights in a peacefull manner less infringments of your rights would occur simply because they can\'t afford it.

then after you have been processed and found to be not guilty, you go and take more photographs. :twisted:

 

[finn18]

It all depends...

...on where you were when you took the pictures. If you were in a public place you can take pictures of who and what the hell you like (with the possible exception of MOD establishments - but if you want pictures of them you can just download them from Russian internet sites).
If, however, you were on property owned by someone then technically you need their permission to take photos there.
It does sound like those officers were exceeding their authority though and I\'d certainly write and complain if you were indeed in a public place.

 

[matty1001]

Right, iv been to the Baltic art gallery today and the persons work what is in the metro station is up in the Baltic, its a sort of artistic street art. The artists \'street\' name is Dsign, (i think)
The work in the metro station is a huge print out sticker and is on a wall just inside the entrance of the metro station.
I asked the woman/guide at the Baltic and explaned what had happened, she said that although the work in the gallery was not allowed to be photoed (SP?) the work outside of the gallery was, and the Baltic (and Dsign) owned the copyright to the use of the image, not nexus.
So im going to go tonight and snap away to my hearts content, il pobly even post pics up here, to show what all the fuss was over!

 

[paintingploddy]

@ Dammekkos
1. Please enlighten me to what institution you refer. Name my institution and demonstrate the hypocrisy if you don\'t mind, or are you nw widening your dislike to encompass my 10000 colleagues in addition to your local constabulary.

2. Where do I mention orders? If a complaint is made by a member of the public do you want police to ignore it or follow it up?

3. Decent people do get mistreated by police worldwide. Sometimes it is deliberate, sometimes it is systemic, other times it is an honest mistake, and sometimes it is a byproduct of the decent persons own actions. What matters is that there are mechanisms through courts, ombudsmen, politicians and the media by which we can be held to account if we do exceed our authority. I won\'t pretend every member of a law enforcement agency is the same, unfortunately you do.

4. I don\'t know which criminals you associate with but the ones who show respect are few and far between.

Get the chip off your shoulder and PM me if you want to discuss it further.

Lastly Farseerlum has it best. If you want to protect your rights learn about them first and choose your battlefield. If you decide to resist physically you will lose in the short term and probably in the long term. You take your cause to the right forums after acting reasonably and most times you will come out the winner (unless of course the law (meaning the statutes) is against you).

 

[airhead]

Painting Ploddy, I do not envy you your job. You can never do it right as far as the media and public perception are concerned.

You either used undue force or you pampered the crooks. You are either the strong arm tactics of the govenment or the fat donut eater. No win. Bust a bad guy and the locals and family scream how you are just picking on them because of (insert favorite whine here). Or you don\'t take out the nut and you are releasing a murderer back into society.

Yea, these are the extreemes, but it would not pay for me to have your job - not near enough patience.

 

[krom1415]

paintingploddy, I assume your a police person. So i\'d just like to say I think the UK police force do a very difficult job, very well, in general. I dont envy your job either, but am dam glad your about, trying your best for our community.
So a big thanks for that.

 

[supervike]

@Ogrebane....It sounds good. I sure would like to advocate the rebellion and not let things like that trample us. But on the whole, it was probably best to comply, complain later, and keep his camera....

@painting ploddy....don\'t let some tongue and cheek comments paint the picture for you. I have very high respect for the folks in your profession. It is a high stress job, where everyday you get to deal with the ilk of society. Trust me though-- I think of you people as the \'good guys\'. Unfortunately, there is also a high degree of arrogance built into your profession too (at least from the officers I know, and the stories I hear). Obviously, the two go hand and hand somehow, or its in the personality make-up.

 

[philologus]

Originally posted by airhead
Painting Ploddy, I do not envy you your job. You can never do it right as far as the media and public perception are concerned.

You either used undue force or you pampered the crooks. You are either the strong arm tactics of the govenment or the fat donut eater. No win. Bust a bad guy and the locals and family scream how you are just picking on them because of (insert favorite whine here). Or you don\'t take out the nut and you are releasing a murderer back into society.

Yea, these are the extreemes, but it would not pay for me to have your job - not near enough patience.

This is a phenomenon I\'ve noticed as well. How many cop movies were produced in the last 5 years? How many were about good cops? Same with TV.

 

[Torn blue sky]

Bloody Rozzers! :cussing:

 

[laurence]

getting older

Maybe I\'m just getting older and won\'t tolerate this kind of shite anymore - I\'d go in to the local \'Bill\' and make a fuss (I mean you didn\'t break any law right?). I mean those bastards bullied you and essentially put you into an uncomfortable situation when in fact you did absolutely nothing wrong. You wound up losing a days worth of photos. Perhaps you could say that these photos were part of your university research etc... I\'d demand compensation. How dare they go around doing this to people! Don\'t get me wrong, I think most police are great. After all, it was the police who returned my Fender \'tele\' to me after some pricks stole it. Most police d00ds are c00l and help to tale care of the people.

On a lighter note, I ran a red light today and was flagged over by the police. All I did was pretend that I couldn\'t speak Chinese, say I was sorry, and the police officer said all was okay. No fine, nothing.