Who stole my words and pictures? ……..on the wireless today

 I don’t make any great claims to my stories, pictures and research.

Be Happy, Manchester, 1979

Mr. Shakespeare, Bill Brandt, and Edward Gibbon outshine me but when I write and publish a book or post a photograph these are works which are mine and mine alone.

All Saints, Manchester, 1981

So, what follows is that I should be asked before they are reproduced in a format and in a context which I approve of, let alone the basic one of being offered payment.

And this led me to listen with great interest to today’s edition of In Our Time, which was on  Copyright.*

In the early 18th century the British Parilament passed the first copyright law, officially known as  An Act for the Encouragement of Learning and popularly as the  Statute of Anne.

To quoute the BBC's footnotes "Copyright protects and regulates a piece of work - whether that's a book, a painting, a piece of music or a software programme. It emerged as a way of balancing the interests of authors, artists, publishers, and the public in the context of evolving technologies and the rise of mechanical reproduction".

Before the Rush, The Loyds, Chorlton, 2024

The programme offered up stories about writers and artists such as Alexander Pope, William Hogarth and Charles Dickens and the heated debates about ownership and originality which continue to this day.

All of which today is reinforced by the emergence of artificial intelligence.

Hot days in a garden, Chorlton, 2025

The contributors included Lionel Bently, Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the University of Cambridge, Will Slauter, Professor of History at Sorbonne University, Paris and Katie McGettigan, Senior Lecturer in American Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London and was produced by  Eliane Glaser.

The broadcast ranged over the history of copyright, the complicated question of what constitutes originality and to what extent protecting someone’s work restricts the development of art and technology.

All good stuff but doesn’t detract from that simple observation that copyright exists to protect the work of any author who has invested time labour and their imagination and wants to do so again.

So, often on social media people lift material, repost it without any acknowledgement, gratuity and often in an inappropriate context.

And use that simple excuse that “I saw it and thought it was alright to use”, an excuse made absurd if instead of a piece of writing or a picture, it was a bike left outside a shop.

My River, London, 1979

Location; Radio 4

Pictures; Manchester, Chorlton, London, 1979-2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Copyright, In Our Time, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002c3bm