"Eyewitness media (videos, photographs and audio clips captured by individuals at the scene of a news event) has become critical to how stories are discovered and reported. News organisations have used eyewitness media in the aftermath of nearly every major news event of the past decade1 and many ne ... wsrooms now have dedicated teams or specialists focused on the monitoring and verification of content shared online. Newsgathering on social media raises a wide range of questions: ethical questions around immediately contacting people who may have witnessed a truly tragic event; managerial questions around viewing pictures that could be deeply distressing; and legal questions around the right to use this content without infringing on copyright. The latter range of questions is the focus of this guide. Our goal is for readers to come away with an understanding of how copyright laws apply to eyewitness media and to highlight some of the pitfalls that news organisations should avoid when looking to use it in their reporting. [...] Although case law is limited, in this guide we will look at some cases that have been brought against news organisations and discuss how they may help us to understand what newsrooms can and cannot do when using eyewitness media. This guide is designed to give an overview of eyewitness media and copyright law regimes. We start by offering some thoughts about the use of eyewitness media by news organisations and the workflows that they need to follow before deciding to publish a piece of content. We show how these processes should actually help protect the copyright holder as well as allow news organisations to balance the need for speed with respect for the law. We look at some of the misconceptions around copyright in relation to the social media platforms and explore the dichotomy between digital news and analogue law — especially as platforms emerge that provide new opportunities. We then turn to specific countries and jurisdictions. We look at six legal regimes in some of the leading global news markets and discuss the challenges for news organisations headquartered in these countries. A review of each legal context is accompanied by short interviews with journalists and editors from major news organisations in each country to illustrate how they have attempted to address the need to use eyewitness media while also respecting copyright. An important discussion here is to compare the terms fair use and fair dealing. These terms are often used (and misused) as a defence for featuring an eyewitness photograph or video discovered on social media without copyright clearance. However, it’s important to understand that these terms present different legal considerations from country to country." (Introduction, pages 6-7) more

"The rapid and incredible growth of eyewitness media (also known as user-generated content or UGC) has led to the emergence of a new cadre of journalists, humanitarian and human rights professionals whose job it is to seek out, verify and edit the most disturbing and traumatic raw images captured by ... non professionals and posted online. These professionals are tasked with viewing and sifting through massive volumes of eyewitness media - that is, raw, unedited, authentic footage now captured regularly on smartphones - to enhance their investigations, reporting, operations, prosecutions and advocacy. Professionals who work with eyewitness media watch disturbing footage from war zones, natural and manmade disasters and accidents over and over again to verify its veracity and to edit out images that are deemed too extreme for viewing by the general public. Viewing traumatic images of death, destruction, blood and unimaginable horrors all day every day - often for years on end - is now an integral part of the daily work of many desk-bound staff working for news, human rights and humanitarian organisations who are often located thousands of miles away from where the actual horrors occur. Whether it is a broadcaster, publisher, human rights or humanitarian professional, symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are now evident amongst staff working in offices on what we call the digital frontline. This study builds upon previous research that proved that viewing distressing eyewitness media can lead psychological injury, including, but not restricted to, such conditions as PTSD and major depression. The principle aim of this research is to explore the following questions: How much distressing eyewitness media are professionals, who work in the three professional sectors, watching? How frequently, and in what volumes are professionals viewing distressing eyewitness media? What kinds of eyewitness media do professionals find particularly distressing?" What coping mechanisms, if any, have been developed by staff to help mitigate the potentially negative effects of viewing distressing content? - What support, if any, do professionals receive from their organisations and senior managers? - Does organisational culture encourage or prevent professionals from requesting support from their organisation’s hierarchy? What training and preparation is provided to raise awareness of or mitigate the adverse impact of trauma exposure on university graduates, newcomers and those established in post? What resources do organisations provide to prevent, mitigate and treat the adverse impact of trauma exposure? Which of those resources have been used? Which are found to be the most useful? What do staff who experience vicarious trauma need and expect from their organisations in order to support them? Based on an online survey (to which we received 209 responses from people working with eyewitness media across all three professional sectors) and 38 in-depth, anonymous interviews we find that: the impact of eyewitness media on journalism, human rights and humanitarian work means that the frontline is no longer geographic. A new type of frontline has emerged that is digital. Staff at an organisation’s headquarters who work with eyewitness media do so daily and often see more horror on a daily basis compared to their counterparts deployed in the field. Consequently, organisations have a duty of care towards office based staff working on the digital frontline who are at serious risk of vicarious trauma and PTSD [...] " (Executive summary, page 3-5) more