There are certain elements every good spy story must contain. Espionage, obviously. Russians, preferably, since we need villains and everyone knows that the Russkies are the Bad Guys. Sex too: all code-breaking and no jollies makes for a very dull read. And of course, a copyright fight. Huh?
When 10 Russian spies were arrested in the US and subsequently deported to the motherland in the biggest spy swap since the cold war, photo editors everywhere were delighted to discover that one was more Anya Amasova than Rosa Klebb. Pretty much forgetting the other 9 less photogenic spooks, the western media homed in on 28 year old Anna Chapman: cue reams of breathless copy from the “gorgeous, pouting, sultry, femme fatale bombshell” school of journalism.
So it was a major disappointment to the panting hacks when Anna and her colleagues disappeared from view on their return to Russia: word was that they were holed up in a Moscow safe house discussing their futures with their employers at the SVR foreign intelligence service. The only news was of a meeting with Russia’s No. 1 former spook, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, when the entire company entertained themselves singing Soviet patriotic songs.
But now relief is at hand: Anna is back with a bang. For having been debriefed – so to speak – Anna did what any self-respecting spook craving a low profile would do: she posed in a series of revealing photographs with a Kremlin backdrop for a Russian magazine.
“None of this must leak”, Anna is claimed to have instructed during the photo session, shortly before the photos leaked onto..her own Facebook page. Naturally they were almost instantly redistributed around the web, and also popped up in the following day’s Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.
The magazine that arranged the shoot, Zhara or Heat, are not amused at seeing their world exclusive wrecked by the talent. After all, if you can’t trust one of your own spies to keep a secret, who can you trust?
“Our lawyers have already prepared a lawsuit against Chapman over the internet publication of photographs of her that were taken by our publisher and thus are our intellectual property,” Heat’s chief editor Maksim Korshunov has told Interfax news agency. The magazine intends to sue Chapman for $32,000 and Komsomolskaya Pravda for $3,200, and will file suit early this week, says a legal spokesman.
The affair has thrust the gorgeous, pouting, etc Anna back into the western media spotlight: cue lots more breathless rewrites of the even more breathless hackery in the Russian press. In Heat’s own words: “Our employees are at a loss for words to explain how beautiful and erotic the photo shoot turned out.”
Of course it’s good to see the mainstream media take such a keen interest in an issue as dry as photographic copyright infringement, but despite all the excitement it seems very unlikely that Heat will be suing the Russian Prime Minister’s erstwhile singing partner. Rather obviously Anna is not without influence, and the $32,000 prize hardly seems worth the potential risks involved.
Heat needn’t lose their day in court though. In a notable irony failure, the western media have been enthusiastically republishing Heat’s photographs, and it’s doubtful whether any permission has been sought. The photos were shot on July 25th and US copyright law allows a 90 day window for material to be registered as unpublished. So Zhara’s lawyers still have several weeks in which they could register the images, then file suit against any US media outlets who’ve used the photos at up to $150,000 per infringement. And it’s not just the US media: Britain’s Daily Mail, for example, are clearly huge fans of Anna.
Given the exclusive nature of the material and its syndication potential – at least part proven by its use by other publishers – Heat could probably make a reasonable case for a substantial loss of earnings. And it would be difficult for those being sued to claim they didn’t realise that use of the pictures would be an infringement since that’s the central point of the stories they’ve been running.
It would be ironic if a Russian magazine were to sue western publishers for hijacking photographs of a Russian spy, but the opportunity is there. And it’s got to be a safer bet than suing a member of the Russian intelligence services.
Yeah … it puts photographers’ copyright infringement in the media spotlight,
But will anyone take any notice? All eyes are on the spy, I’ll bet.
She seems pretty naive to post on Facebook, too. Or could it be a cunning ploy?
Great story though. Thanks.