A photographer who has engaged with a non-profit organization for a joint venture in which the photographer's photos will be used for fundraising purposes demanded compensation after the organization published the pictures on Facebook while changing them and without giving the photographer credit.
The Court held that the organization infringed the photographer's copyrights and moral rights and therefore owed compensation. Publication of a protected work while modifying it and without giving proper credit to the creator, without the express consent of the creator, constitutes an infringement of the creator's copyright and moral rights, even if it is a common way for publishing on the platform on which the publication appears. Even if a change of the images was made by a third party, it is the responsibility of the party making the publication to ensure that the work is the same as the original and gives proper credit to its owner. Here, the photos that the organization posted on its Facebook page were different from the source material provided by the creator and the creator's name was cut from both the photos themselves and the posts that accompanied them in a way that required the viewer to take active action to discover the author's name. Modifying the images and publishing them without such credit constitutes an infringement on the photographer's copyright and his moral rights, and therefore the organization must compensate him.