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The Guardian is to delete photographers' images from its digital archive following their refusal to accept the publisher's changes to rates.

Guardian News & Media has confirmed that it wrote to contributors on Monday to inform them of changes to its standard terms and conditions for commissioned pictures and stock imagery, including new rates for photographers, which will come into effect from 1 May 2010, it said.

The row between freelancers and Guardian News & Media has been raging since last year , when the company said it would  no longer pay second-use reproduction fees for existing images.

Photographers are particularly concerned by the latest changes as these will effectively break a long-standing agreement between the publishing group and the National Union of Journalists to honour recommended NUJ rates for photographers. According to the British Journal of Photography , GNM has said it will reduce all its stock imagery rates by 10 per cent, but increase its day rate for photographers from £248.75 to £262.43 and the half-day rate from £170.20 to £179.56

In March the National Union of Journalists' (NUJ) London Photographers' branch passed a motion to "ask that no such cuts in reproduction or commission fees are made". On Wednesday the branch prepared a model letter to send to GNM calling for higher reproduction fees and asking the publisher, if it does not accept the terms in the letter, to ensure that pictures from the signatory are not reproduced by GNM in the future and "all remaining electronic copies of my photographs in your possession" are destroyed.

Photojournalist and secretary of the NUJ's London Photographers Branch Marc Vallée has now been informed that his images will be removed from the archive.

"I'm not happy about having my pictures deleted from The Guardian archive," he told Journalism.co.uk. "It is only by photographers standing united together that we have a chance of defeating these rate cuts.

"Let's hope that the Guardian management will wake up to the fact that a huge amount of high quality content will no longer be available to them as more photographers refuse to sign up to theses cuts.

"It's a sorry day that 'the world voice of liberal public opinion' is imposing picture rate cuts from the 1 May. Something I will be thinking about as I document the trade union May Day march tomorrow."

In a statement, GNM says: "These changes have been brought about by unprecedented trading conditions and are in line with cutbacks across our entire editorial department.

"The new rates are more transparent and consistent. With particular regard to the stock rates, these remain generous in comparison to many of our competitors. Furthermore, because most stock images are reproduced at a small size attracting the lowest fees, the impact of the percentage change we are proposing will be minimised for individual photographers."

But the NUJ's London Photographers branch said it was a "misnomer" to describe pictures from freelancers and small picture agencies as "stock".

"[T]hese pictures are typically not ubiquitous, generalisable, commodity pictures, but real, recent and relevant to the issues of the day with which the paper is concerned and are therefore precisely the diverse and original content that helps distinguish the Guardian from the competition," the motion passed last month says.

"This content is crucial if the company is to realise its expressed aim of becoming 'the world voice of liberal public opinion'."

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Written by
Judith Townend

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