Abbreviations: HS = our biggest national daily. WTF = well, if you speak the language you should know…. in plain Finnish, a polite form of saying MITÄ HELVETTIÄ?

This is HS web today. Click the image to see it – if you still order the paper. If you don’t, it’ll cost you 1,5€. Because it is behind a paywall. I paid to see it – and it’ll be the best return for my money spent in a long time.

So? What’s the fuss? Why the strong words?

Because the image below is mine – and the one above is by another freelancer. Both images are scanned – yes, scanned – from a printed magazine Kauppalehti Optio just published.

No, it is not our fault. These images are strictly copyrighted – very strictly. They are not even allowed in the archives of ALMA MEDIA to be used later in other ALMA publications, let alone competing publisher Sanoma News and their flagship Helsingin Sanomat.

But it sure is a mistake: I’m sure they just had a scanner open on the table where they put the magazine – and somebody just happened to push the start button… And the careful cropping – plus the careful photoshop-work taking away captions and the logo – naturally this was just a human error. And no copyright mentioned anywhere… Yes, I’d say totally understandable – NOT.

But it gets even better – and taking into account these copyright deals everybody is talking about presently – makes it seem like a bad conspiracy theory: the event I was covering for OPTIO is very exclusive: we were a team of five photographers – three staffers and two freelancers. No other cameras allowed. Period.

Now, HS due to this totally understandable human error just happens to scan pictures from the event… and just by coincidence, happens to choose images by the two freelancers. Sure – had they chosen images by staff photographers, they might have gotten a pretty quick response from the legal dept. of the ALMA Media. But as I said, surely this is a coincidence.

HS and SanomaNews will most probably be pushing again now in the fall their version of these “we-want-everything-and-you-should-be-grateful-to-have-your-image-in-our-publication-in-the-first-place-so-shut-up-and-bend-over” -deals all the publishers are so frantically pushing now.

The print is looking for new models to finance their operation. My 1.5€ spent and clicking to that page: no, HS will not make money with that. I instead might take my family for a nice weekend somewhere… 😉

Here is some free advice: this is not the business model to base your operation in the future. No, instead this is a very efficient way of wasting money.

A sort of tragicomic feel to his gives the last line of the HS website: © Helsingin Sanomat, a Sanoma company – aineiston käyttö uuden palvelun osana kielletty (Use of material is not allowed in any new contexts)