infringement

Photogs Find Paintings That Look Just Like Their Photos Hanging in a Gallery

Getting your work copied, ripped off and/or stolen is a sad reality in the digital age. In fact, earlier this year we shared a website dedicated to ousting copycats and were shocked at how much copyright infringement was really out there. But where finding your work on another "photographer's" website would be startling enough, how would you feel if you found it while browsing a major art show?

Photog Claims Major Designer Used Her Photo on Clothing Without Permission

Photographer Jessica Nichols' most popular photograph on her Flickr account (above left) is titled "Loads of Ranunculus" and has more than 10,000 views. Nichols got a nasty shock a year ago when she discovered that American fashion designer Chris Benz had apparently turned the photo into numerous clothing designs for his Spring 2012 line, without Nichols' knowing and/or permission. Since July of this year, Nichols has been fighting against the infringement in an attempt to get the designer to pay up.

Patent Troll Captures Olympus, Still Going After Canon and Nikon

Intellectual Ventures has announced a settlement with Olympus over a patent infringement battle launched against the camera maker back in September 2011. The patent-holding company, one of the top 5 owners of patents in the United States, is infamous for its "patent trolling", or making money simply by licensing patents from companies and then suing other companies for infringement.

How My Personal Photo Turned Into an Internet Meme

In 2008, I had this kooky idea to take my then 4-year-old son out to an abandoned road and throw him into the air, since it seemed most fathers like to do this with their kids. There was this long, abandoned road near my house, so we set up there. After getting my Nikon D200, self-timer, and tripod ready, my son decided that he didn't want to be thrown into the air, so I just held him up instead. I then took another photo of myself looking up with my arms extended.

BuzzFeed Sued for $1.3M After Publishing 9 Celebrity Photos Without Permission

Copyright infringement of photographs is anything but uncommon in this Internet age, as countless images are published all across the web every day without the owners' consent. The problem is so widespread that virtually everyone gets away with it. The ones that don't, however, are occasionally in for a good deal of pain.

Case in point: the viral-content aggregation site BuzzFeed is currently being sued for $1.3 million by a photo agency after publishing nine -- that's right, nine -- of the agency's photographs of celebrities.

Facebook Shuttering Massive Pages for Violating Photo Copyrights

Facebook takes the copyright infringement of photographs seriously. So seriously that it doesn't think twice about instantly -- and permanently -- nuking offending pages, regardless of how popular those pages are. Case in point: two months ago, popular trend hunting blog The Cool Hunter had its popular page abruptly deleted; the page boasted over 788,000 fans, contained five years' worth of content, and was a huge source of traffic for the company's website. Facebook has since stated that the removal was due to "multiple instances of copyright infringement."

How I Confronted a Newspaper and Got Paid as a Result

Not too long ago, I was approached by a newspaper (Journal Le Droit, a large daily newspaper distributing print in the Ottawa-Hull area) asking if I would allow them to print a few of my pictures in an upcoming special feature on a nearby town, Rockland, Ontario. Having photographed much of Rockland in the past three years, I gladly accepted and figured that I could somewhat benefit from some exposure.

Just to make sure, I asked if they were offering monetary compensation. They responded that a photo-credit would be placed at the bottom of the image in lieu of payment. Why not?

Photographers Can Now Use the FBI Anti-Piracy Seal to Scare Away Thieves

You know that FBI anti-piracy seal that appears at the beginning of home movies? The one that's displayed alongside the messsage, "The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work is illegal. 
Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain
is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by fines and federal imprisonment"? Well, you can now use it to remind would-be infringers that your photographs are copyrighted.

Prior to a new policy that was enacted this past week, only certain members of the entertainment and software industries were allow to display the warning. Now, all copyright holders in the US -- including photographers -- can make use of the Anti-Piracy Warning (APW) seal and message.

Photographer Threatened with Lawsuit After Protecting His Copyright

After discovering that multiple websites had used one of his photos without permission, photographer Jay Lee began sending out DMCA takedown notifications to web hosts in an attempt to protect his copyright. One of the websites was owned by a woman named Candice Schwager, who had 14 of her sites temporarily taken offline as a result of the takedown request. Turns out Schwager is involved in both helping represent special needs children and helping a man named Louis Guthrie get elected as County Sheriff. This is where the story gets weird.

Jim Marshall Estate Sues Thierry Guetta and Google Over Copyright Infringement

If you've been following us for a while you may remember the Hope poster lawsuit we reported on in January of 2010. The case pitted artist Shepard Fairey against the AP and Mannie Garcia over a photograph Garcia had taken of President Obama. Fairey, who ultimately lost the case when he admitted to having destroyed and falsified evidence, was claiming that his poster fit the definition of fair use.

Today we have a similar issue of photographs that have been altered artistically, only the players have changed to music photographer Jim Marshall's Estate vs. Thierry Guetta (Mr. Brainwash) and Google.

The Daily Mail Stole My Photos and I Got Paid

I’ve got a little story for you today, and a valuable lesson for photographers everywhere. On the Monday before last, a post that I wrote the week before started to go viral. I was receiving more traffic than I had ever experienced before, and from sites that I had never heard of. Fantastic. Only, along with the good news, we have some bad news.

Oops: Nikon Uses Stolen Canon 5D Mark II Footage for D800 Promo Video

Nikon caused a stir this past weekend after it was revealed that a promo video shown during the D800's launch in Bangkok actually contained footage that was both used without permission and that wasn't even captured with a Nikon D800. After a recording of the promo was uploaded to YouTube in mid-February, people began coming forward with reports that Nikon had used their videos without permission.

This Photograph Is Not Free

So this was the first sunset I captured in 2012. It cost me $6,612 to take this photo.

Singer Bob Dylan Accused of Plagiarizing Photographs

Singer Bob Dylan is being accused of plagiarism after several paintings in his recent art show were found to have "striking resemblances" to works by photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dmitri Kessel and Léon Busy. An example is Dylan's painting titled Opium (above left), which appears to be directly copied from Busy's Vietnam (above right). A Flickr user also found that Dylan had copied six photographs -- one of which an artificial Photoshop edit -- from his Flickr stream.

At What Point Does Inspiration Turn Into Copyright Infringement?

At what point does inspiration turn into plagiarism? That's the question that popped up last year when Rhianna was sued by David LaChapelle over scenes found in one of her music videos, and it's the same issue with a lawsuit recently filed by photographer Janine Gordon against photographer Ryan McGinley. Gordon claims that 150 of McGinley's images -- including some used for a Levi's ad campaign -- are "substantially based" on her photos. In the three pairs of disputed images shown above, the ones on the left are by Gordon and the ones on the right by McGinley.

How Much Pixelation is Needed Before a Photo Becomes ‘Transformed’?

In 2009 Andy Baio of Waxy.org -- founder of Upcoming.org and former CTO of Kickstarter -- created Kind of Bloop, an 8-bit tribute album to the best-selling jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. While Baio meticulously licensed all the music he used to create the album, he released a pixelated version of the original album cover (top, second from left) without licensing it, believing it was different and low-res enough to be considered fair use. He was then sued by the photographer, Jay Maisel, who "felt violated to find his image of Miles Davis, one of his most well-known and highly-regarded images, had been pixellated [...]".

TwitPic Updates ToS to Reassure Users About Photo Copyright Ownership

Since launching in 2008, TwitPic has been at the center of quite a few copyright controversies and legal battles, especially when disasters strike and Twitter users are able to publish photos of things that are happening well before major news outlets. Back in early 2010 photographer Daniel Morel had an iconic photograph taken during the Haiti earthquake widely republished in newspapers across the world without his permission after he uploaded the photos to TwitPic, then later that year Twitter's decision to display TwitPic photos directly on their website caused a brouhaha. TwitPic has finally decided to update their Terms of Service to make it clear that users of the service retain the copyright of everything they upload.

Old Navy Follows in Gap’s Footsteps and Uses Photo without Permission

Last month we reported that a Flickr photographer had found his photograph of a car being used as a Gap clothing design without his permission. It now appears that appropriating images from the web wasn't limited to that design, nor just the Gap brand -- Old Navy, another brand owned by Gap, is now being accused of stealing a car photograph as well. A photographer was strolling around in an Old Navy store in El Centro, California when he came across a shirt that he just couldn't stop staring at. It featured a Land Cruiser that look remarkably similar to one he had photographed before.

“Rephotographer” Richard Prince Loses Copyright Infringement Case

Update: The ruling has been overturned, and a judge has ruled that Prince's usage is fair use.

Richard Prince, the artist who "rephotographed" a cigarette advertisement and had it sell for more than $1 million, has just lost a copyright infringement lawsuit after being sued by photographer Patrick Cariou. Prince had taken 41 photographs made by Cariou from the book Yes, Rasta, modified them in various ways (sometimes minor), and displayed them at a gallery exhibition as his own work (above is one of Cariou's photos on the left with Prince's piece on the right). The exhibition went on to generate over $10 million for Prince and the gallery.

Egyptian Blogger Has Photos Deleted by Flickr, Enlists the Help of Anonymous

After several Egyptian secret police buildings were raided recently by protestors, Egyptian blogger Hossam (AKA 3arabawy) stayed awake for two days organizing and uploading photographs of members of Egypt's secret police who have been accused of brutality and torture. The problem was, Hossam was uploading the images to Flickr, and Flickr wasn't happy about the fact that he didn't shoot them. Flickr soon vaporized the photographs and emailed him a warning for copyright violation.

First Round of Fight Over Iconic Haiti Photo Goes to Photog

Earlier this year photographer Daniel Morel was shocked when a photograph he captured during the devastating earthquake in Haiti and posted to TwitPic was distributed by Agency France Presse (AFP) and published on the front page of newspapers around the world -- all without his permission.

To add insult to injury, he was then sued by AFP when he sent cease and desist letters in response to the copyright infringement. The dispute has turned into a legal battle over whether images uploaded to TwitPic and shared on Twitter can be freely republished by third parties. In what might be an indication of things to come, a federal court has denied AFP's pre-trial request to have the case thrown out.