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Copied ‘kissing’ photo ignites furor

Company uses image for anti-AARP ad without Tribune’s OK

By Don Hamilton

The Portland Tribune, Mar 4, 2005, Updated Oct 30, 2009

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A photograph lifted without permission from the Portland Tribune’s Web site has landed smack in the middle of an angry national debate involving patriotism, Social Security and gay marriage.

The photo, showing two Portland men just before their marriage last March, was used in an Internet advertisement for USA Next, a group attacking AARP for opposing President Bush’s plan to change Social Security. The ad ran from 6 p.m. Feb. 15 to 10 a.m. Feb. 21 on www.spectator.org, the Web site for the conservative magazine The American Spectator.

The photo has become fodder for both sides in the political culture wars.

On one hand, USA Next used the photo as part of its campaign to alienate American Association of Retired Persons members and others by saying the group supports gay marriage. On the other hand, the men in the photo, Rick Raymen and Steven Hansen of Portland, are angry about their image being used for conservative causes and, in turn, are using the ad to raise money for Democrats.

USA Next, The American Spectator and Mark Montini International, the company that produced the ad, did not have authorization from the Portland Tribune to use the copyrighted photo in any capacity, including journalistic or commercial purposes. The paper did not give, sell or contribute its use in any way, and no request for its use was received before the photo appeared in the ad, said Tim Jewett, Portland Tribune photo director.

Such a request, if submitted, would have been rejected anyway, Jewett said, because the paper won’t sell photos for commercial use without the permission of people shown in the photo. All commercial sales are negotiated separately.

Executive editor responds

Dwight Jaynes, the Portland Tribune’s executive editor, said anyone who violates the paper’s copyright could face legal consequences.

“The photo, in fact, appears to have been lifted from our Web site with no regard for copyright issues or the personal damages it could cause, through commercial use, to those in the picture,” Jaynes said in an e-mail Thursday to Mark Montini, whose Dacula, Ga., company produced the ad. “I will state the position of this newspaper as clearly as I can: That picture belongs to us and we take copyright infringement very seriously.”

The paper’s attorney is considering how to address the issue.

Montini said his company apparently failed to obtain the rights to the picture. USA Next, which took out the ad, and The American Spectator, on whose Web site it ran, both said they thought rights had been properly obtained.

The photo, shot by Portland Tribune staff photographer L.E. Baskow, showed Raymen and Hansen dressed in tuxedos, holding flowers and kissing while standing in line outside the Multnomah Building on March 3, 2004, the day Multnomah County started issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In the ad, the photo has a green check mark across the front.

The ad also showed a picture of an American soldier with a red X across it and the words, “The real AARP agenda” at the side. The ad clicked through to the USA Next Web site.

USA Next linked AARP to gay marriage and soldiers for two reasons, said Charlie Jarvis, the group’s president: first, because an Ohio AARP chapter opposed a gay marriage ban on the ballot there last fall and second, because he thinks AARP has not been a leader in veterans issues. To help his cause, Jarvis hired veterans of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign that attacked Sen. John Kerry’s war record during the presidential campaign last year.

“We’d like to see an exodus from AARP,” Jarvis said.

The ad has been a topic of debate among right-wing and left-wing bloggers as well as the mainstream media since appearing on The American Spectator site. It has also become the target of numerous parodies that repeats the USA Next use of the photo.