Harrods’ use of NME covers as part of a promotional week celebrating “Britishness” has led to complaints from photographers, who claim they should be paid extra for work appearing in the display.
The
London department store was given permission by NME publisher IPC to
use the covers as window dressing for the event, which is flagged as
celebrating all that is quintessentially British.
But
photographers whose pictures feature on the covers claim they were only
paid for single use of their work, and have demanded the store remove
the display unless they are paid extra.
The dispute echoes a 2003
row over IPC’s NME Originals spin-off series, which reused archive
material from NME and sister title Melody Maker without first checking
with the authors, some of whom owned the rights to their work. The
publisher eventually reached a payment deal with the journalists.
A spokesman for IPC said: “We’re aware of the situation, which we are now working to rectify.”
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