Media group rages against theatre’s use of Dylan Thomas photographs

A Dublin media company has been awarded €1,500 after suing a non-profit community theatre group in Scotland for unauthorised use of photographs of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.

Pablo Star Media Ltd in Dublin sued Tron Theatre Ltd, a Glasgow-based organisation which aims to make theatre more accessible to the public.

They had brought the breach of copyright action at Dublin District Civil Court over unauthorised use of photographs on Tron Theatre’s Storify.com social media channel when they were promoting a play about the poet in 2014.

Judge Deirdre Gearty was told by Hayden Price, owner of Pablo Star Media, that they owned the rights to the photographs.

She held that the claimant has rights in relation to the photographs and those rights were registered in Ireland.

She said Mr Price has ownership of the material and his entitlement to them was not been disputed. Judge Gearty was satisfied the Scottish audience would have been a new audience. She believed there has been an infringement, “albeit an innocent infringement”, of copyright but she noted that Tron Theatre Ltd remedied it by removing the content at the earliest opportunity once it had been brought to their attention by Mr Price.

She said she did not believe there was maleficences or intent by Tron Theatre Ltd. “ I think it was an innocent mistake. They removed it almost immediately after it was drawn to their attention,” the judge said.

She awarded Pablo Star Media Ltd €1,500 plus legal costs.

The hyper-linked photos on Tron Theatre Ltd’s social media channel directed to an Italian website, the court heard.

Mr Price contended that by making the the images available they had published it, were acting as a newspaper, and had breached copyright.

Lesley Renton, manager of Tron Theatre Ltd, told the court they were a small charity organisation. They develop and support fledgling artists and try to make theatre more accessible to the public. The government-funded group put on five performances of the play over four days in July 2014. It cost £3,600 to stage the play which earned £5,000.

She agreed they did not own the image when they used the link on their Storify post and they had not believed it was an infringement of copyright.

She was contacted on January 5 by Mr Price about the unauthorised use of photos and they were removed on the following day, the court heard.

Counsel for the plaintiff, Brendan Guildea, argued that by them linking the image on to the Storify platform without authorisation it was an infringement of his client’s copyright.