photographs as plunder and politics

I  missed this earlier this year.But just have to  foreground it now.The issues raised are too important to ignore..

The real  issues behind this picture archive grab (Plunder would not be too harsh a word for the deed)  should not be buried under a political past by those who now have power over  it.

They are , interestingly enough, raised only in the comments that follow the main story. not too many people ususally read the comments and move on without realising how important the questions raised are.

No archive is apolitical. Those who would preserve it just add their politics to it. And all too often it is the powerful whose politics overwrite the human rights of others in the narrative they construct. A narrative that western Museums and Collections already control too much.  And the narrative in the use of Gadaffi government's's own political archive is, of course, to further demonise the man they demonised to destroy in the first place.

Photos from Abu Ghraib were protected by claiming issues of Privacy and American national security.

Does none of that apply to  photos from targeted, somehow lesser,  nations??

@Jenny Lynn Walker

Isn't it your feeling that Michael Christopher Brown or the Human Rights Watch or BJP could have done better and properly if only they had wanted to? They are all full media professinals who know are fully aware of the task. But then they profit from being associated with "the story". Thus, if they fog the fact that their contribution is merely that of a copy machine and that other people are the real creators, they profit even more.

Properly Crediting Images?

I do think that important questions are raised by how the images have been captioned. The actual author is entirely left out and if the author is not credited, all could take pictures of other's images and credit them to themselves so it would be good to hear from Human Rights Watch on this issue - on why they chose to caption them in this way and leave the original author out.

Perhaps there is another way to caption them that would properly acknowledge the author of the images? That would be great.

Some of these images are remarkable and as they were not actually taken by those that are currently credited and the photographers are most likely in Libya, presumably, it would be good if they were marked "Author Unknown" because it could be that at some point, the authors will have the opportunity to come forward - or perhaps even relatives if they are no longer "with us".

Also, there are presumably experts on crediting pictures who could come forward to answer the question given that increasingly photographers are taking images of others images and when there is a copyright symbol involved, it needs to be taken seriously.

Credit where credit is due

It am pleased that this matter has been raised in the comments. A while back I saw an article on this exhibition in the Guardian newspaper. I followed the link to the exhibition and had a look at some of the photographs to be exhibited. I looked at the one of Gaddafi relaxing in the desert with friends and saw the photographer Tim Hetherington’s name underneath it. I found this most odd because I thought Tim Hetherington was the photographer that got killed in Libya while following the so called ‘rebels’. I couldn’t understand how this same photographer had formerly had such an intimate relationship with Gaddafi that he was in a position to be photographing him relaxing with friends. At last it is clear. This was not a photograph taken by Tim Hetherington at all. He took a photograph of someone else’s photograph which is now copyright courtesy of the estate of Tim Hetherington/ Human Rights Watch. This means that privately taken photos by unknown photographers are now the estate of Tom Hetherington/ Human Rights Watch to be exhibited in anyway they wish. I find the whole thing most strange. It should be made clearer to members of the general public like myself that the original photographer is unknown. This would avoid confusion and give credit where credit is due.

Disrespecting Authors and Tim Hetherington

I feel 100% certain that Tim Hetherington would not have wished to take credit for the work of other photographers being himself one of the world's most highly-respected and highly-regarded British war photographers. This is certain.

The original authors of these works have not given permission for the copying and distribution of their work obviously and as the images are not marked "Author Unknown" and the photographers who originally created the images are neither credited, these images disrespect the authorship of the photographers who originally took the images as well as the good name of Tim Hetherington (who would surely have replicated the images in good faith and with good intentions for Human Rights Watch) whilst they remain credited in this way.

And to put it in simple terms that all can understand, would it be right for any of us to take a photograph of another photographer's work and distribute it with a © symbol followed our name (with or without the word courtesy)? It seems far more than discourteous to me.

"Defending human rights worldwide"? Human Rights Watch

These images are an opportunity for Human Rights Watch to prove it - by crediting the original authors of these images.

Marking them with "Original Author Unknown" alongside those who reproduced them with all good intentions would bring the display of these to the public in alignment with Human Rights Watch's cited aims - "defending human rights worldwide (since 1978)" - as well as protecting the rights of ALL photographers.

Or are these NOT the aims of Human Right's Watch??

Immoral Public Display

What has happened here is immoral, insensitive (Gaddafi has not been dead a year, he has a family) and shameful, made worse by the involvement of HRW in flagrant infringement of copyright & the extortion of money from it. I've heard the excuse why this is legitimate, from Oliver Laurent himself (I telephoned) it was a poor one but understandable. In the rat race we are in today, noble gestures play no role for many, in the pursuit of the next buck. However, for HRW this is yet another display of its duplicity in the Libyan saga. As to this article, not only was Gaddafi not a dictator, neither was the system of government autocratic, this is the fact. Under his leadership, from being a poor country, he achieved a standard of living surpassing UK’s, only matched by the likes of South Korea & Japan in recent history. Lets cast off the lie, this was no revolution but a brutal external aggression, for the resources of a country, which Europe has a long history of rigorously undertaking.

http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/report/2179232/exploring-colonel-muammar-gaddafis-photography-archives