I don't think anyone's debating that the lawyer is a bad person. But why not take a big company to task? This is a serious ongoing problem for photographers these days. I highly doubt this is the first time this has happened to this photographer. And I doubt it's the first time DN has used someone's photo without permission.
You could maybe make a case like this for someone like DN, which is a nonprofit. But do you really want ABC News Brought To You By Disney to be able to use your picture of some newsworthy event in their primetime TV show for free? They're not giving away those ad spots for free in service of the public interest.
My main concern is that it is in societies best interest to make the cost of reporting news low. Would be horrible to be in a situation like "all the good pictures of this event cost at least $2000, so if you won't pay for that, your audience can't see a visual of it"
Do news agencies have to pay royalties on pictures which are 'adversarial'? ex. Trudeau in blackface? Seems like there are a class of images which society benefits from having them be free and not subject to intellectual property restrictions.
Seems like capping royalties as a proportion of revenue earned by ads on that broadcast would be a sensible method of addressing this.
I feel like their willingness to pay any sum implies that they know they should have had permission/agreement beforehand.
I can't quickly find details about the context of the photo's use. They might be out there, but if so they seem buried in legal briefs, from what I can tell. My ability to read such dense documents isn't great, unfortunately. I get too bored with it. Similarly, I'm not super knowledgeable of all the ins and outs of fair use (which I believe is what you were alluding to), but it seems fairly nuanced and does not seem to give news organizations a blanket exemption.
