Krzysztof Gwizdała discovered that his photograph depicting a police light bar was being used without permission on the website of the Police Headquarters in Świecie, in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship (this headquarters reports to the police in Bydgoszcz). He asked the portal administrators to remove the photograph and pay financial compensation for its unlawful use. In response, he was told that using the photograph of the light bar served “public safety purposes,” and that an assessment carried out by experts had not made it possible to conclusively establish that he was its author. The Bydgoszcz edition of Gazeta Wyborcza took an interest in the intellectual property theft case.
A Gazeta journalist asked the police spokesperson in Bydgoszcz who, in their opinion, if not Gwizdała, was the author of the photograph they had used on their website. She received no answer to that question. The case was covered in the article “Police Guilty of Copyright Theft? Will They Pay for the Light Bar?”.
Commentary by Krzysztof Gwizdała
At the beginning of 2005, I took a photograph of a police car in Bolesławiec. I cut out a fragment showing the police light bar, shortened the antenna in a graphics program and blurred the reflected branches. This is how the image came about, which I placed on my website in March 2005 (https://istotne.pl/boleslawiec/wiadomosc/WU/w-3-dni-zatrzymano-13-pijanych-kierowcow). Since then, I have used it to illustrate police-related reports. In 2011, I realized that the photograph was being used on many different websites. I contacted the individual administrators, asking for compensation and removal of the photograph. I managed to reach an agreement with many of them. I did not expect to encounter resistance from the police.
When I asserted my rights to the photograph, the police dismissed me, writing that it was not my photograph and, besides, that using the photograph of the light bar served “public safety purposes.” When I sent evidence, I was again told that I was not the author of my own photograph. The police had conducted an analysis that “had not made it possible to conclusively establish” that I was the author. To this day, the photograph remains available on the police website.