Profoto has been publicly accusing Godox of stealing its A1 round-head flash designs for the upcoming Godox V1, going as far as to send threatening letters to retailers warning them of legal trouble if they stock the V1. But Godox isn't letting Profoto thwart its V1 launch.
With the explosion of social media and photo sharing, personal pictures commonly go viral and make their way onto major news websites, sometimes without the photographers' permission. But a judge has just ruled that media companies can't simply steal social media photos whenever they see fit.
A Virginia federal court has made a decision that photographers won't be happy to hear: the court ruled that finding a photo on the Internet and then using it without permission on a commercial website can be considered fair use.
Just this past week, the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs approved amendments to EU’s Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, which includes the infamous Article 13.
The renowned German lens maker Carl Zeiss has accused the South Korean lens maker Samyang of copying its designs. As a result, the Samyang lenses at the center of the dispute are being pulled by distributors and retailers.
Apple is being sued in two separate patent infringement cases by an Israeli company that's one of the pioneers of dual camera technology in smartphones. Corephotonics accuses Apple of violating its patents in the dual camera systems found in the latest generations of iPhones.
Photographer David Slater has won his legal battle over that monkey selfie. A US appeals court ruled Monday that US copyright law doesn't allow animals to file copyright infringement lawsuits.
Grumpy Cat, the Internet favorite feline whose photos have been widely used in memes, has been awarded $710,000 in a copyright infringement lawsuit.
A friend recently posted an X-ray of his ankle replacement on Facebook, which led me to wonder “who owns …
Singer Bruno Mars is being sued by a photographer after he posted a childhood photo of himself on social media.
Security researcher Kevin Finisterre recently found a flaw that exposed private customer data of the Chinese drone company DJI to the public. After reporting the bug to DJI's bug bounty program, Finisterre received pushback and a legal threat. So instead of collecting his $30,000 bounty, Finisterre is now going public with his findings (and experience).
Fujifilm has filed a legal complaint in the US, accusing Polaroid of turning against the company and demanding millions of dollars in royalty payments per year for the use of its white borders on its new Instax Square instant film. Polaroid is allegedly threatening Fujifilm with a trademark lawsuit if it doesn't comply.
There's a strange legal battle going on right now between a photographer and a giant online media company. After being sued by the photographer for infringing on his photo copyrights, CBS has responded by filing its own copyright infringement lawsuit against the photographer... for sharing 59-year-old TV show still frames on social media.
Here's a basic fact everyone should know: just because a photo appears in a Google search doesn't mean it's a free photo that you can use for any purpose. If it's copyrighted, you could be sued if you use it without permission. That's what the guy in this 13-minute video found out the hard way.
Photographers in the United States are now one step closer toward seeing a copyright small claims system for pursuing infringements on a smaller scale. A new bipartisan House bill has introduced the CASE Act, which stands for the "Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2017."
Photographer David Slater has finally settled his two-year legal battle over the monkey selfie photos that went viral back in 2011.
French President Emmanuel Macron has filed a legal complaint against a photographer who he claims infringed upon his "right to privacy." The photographer is being accused of taking "holiday snaps" of the president and his wife in Marseille this week.
Remember David Slater, the photographer whose camera was hijacked by a monkey and used for a series of selfies that went viral on the Internet? The photographer has spent years fighting a copyright battle in court over the photos, and now he's broke.
In late 2015, the FAA began demanding mandatory registration of most drones, including most consumer camera drones that were exploding in popularity. Earlier in 2017, however, a federal court ruled that casual drone owners do not need to register. Now the FAA is offering registration deletions and refunds.
Editor's note: This article has been removed at the request of the author.
There have been some legal rumblings in the camera industry over the past couple of months. It's an ongoing patent dispute between Nikon and two other companies involved in camera technologies: Carl Zeiss and ASML. The latest news is that the United States has opened an official patent infringement investigation into Nikon's products.
A Montana-based photographer has filed a lawsuit against the Republican National Committee, accusing the RNC of willfully infringing upon her copyright by using one of her photos on a political mailer without permission.
The estate of legendary artist Andy Warhol has filed a lawsuit against New York City photographer Lynn Goldsmith. The reason? Goldsmith believes Warhol violated her copyright by turning one of her portraits of Prince into a painting.
A French court has ruled that American appropriation artist Jeff Koons infringed the copyright of French photographer Jean-François Bauret in creating one of his celebrated sculptures, Naked (1988).
The US Copyright Office is currently doing a study on the "Moral Rights of Attribution and Integrity." Want to play a part in the development of US copyright law moving forward? You can weigh in and share your views on the matter.
On Saturday, PetaPixel ran the story of a photographer whose photo had been imitated to a surprisingly thorough degree by a German ad agency. While a poll on that article suggested that a clear majority (~74%) of respondents saw it as unethical plagiarism, I thought I’d dig into the legal aspects a bit.
So you’ve spent years honing your photography skills, perfecting the art of puppy fashion photography. You’ve set up a website to share your marvelous work with the world, and one day you’re contacted by a corporation who wants to use one of your photos in its ad for doggie perfume. You’re thrilled; you’ve worked and hoped for this day!
Social media have so thoroughly infused our everyday lives that calling them “ubiquitous” seems inadequate. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, and others take up an astonishing amount of our time, bandwidth, and attention, and have become indispensable business and marketing tools as well.
When I was in college, I lived for a while in a crappy little rental house next to a cemetery. Neither I nor my roommate, Brad, knew how to cook anything, and we ate bologna sandwiches pretty much all the time. Eventually, someone gave us a cookbook so simple that even a half-starved English major could learn a few basic dishes--the first page actually had step-by-step instructions, with pictures, for making toast in a toaster.
The Ask First Campaign is not primarily about photography, it's about consent. But when the campaign's popular stickers and their message was recently applied to photographers taking pictures of people at a public BDSM fair without asking, the proverbial claws came out.
Professional Photographers of America, the world's largest pro photography non-profit trade group, is launching a big lobbying campaign in order to see the creation of a copyright small claims system in the United States, something that's "vital to your photography business," PPA says.
The messy legal battle surrounding the life's work of nanny and amateur street photographer Vivian Maier may finally be coming to a close in less than a week.
Could your smartphone camera one day be turned on and used by the government for surveillance? That's what Apple is warning the public about as it continues to battle the FBI in court.
France's national police force is warning parents to stop sharing photos of their kids through Facebook, saying the practice could expose the children to privacy and security issues.
A Muslim woman has filed a lawsuit against the Associated Press and AP photographer Mark Lennihan over a photo of her wearing a headscarf while sitting in a Starbucks. The image was sold as a stock photo and used in an opinion column that asked Muslim women not to wear the hijab.
Artist Richard Prince sparked huge controversy last year by taking Instagram photos without permission, making extremely small edits to them, and then selling them as fine art for up to $100,000 each.
Now, one of the outraged photographers who had his photo used by Prince is suing the artist for copyright infringement.
Since May of 2015, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been beta testing a new smartphone app called B4UFLY (pronounced "before you fly"). It's a portable resource that helps aerial photographers and other drone pilots stay up to date on where it's safe and legal to fly.
Canon USA has filed lawsuits against a number of camera gear retailers in an attempt to stop the sale of gray market camera gear. The gray market is when a dealer imports and sells unauthorized gear that was intended for another country's camera market. The cheaper gear is legitimate, not counterfeit, but it's unauthorized and usually isn't covered by Canon's warranty.
Back in July, we reported that 47-year-old William H. Merideth of Hillview, Kentucky, had gotten arrested for using a shotgun to shoot down a neighbor's drone that was flying over his property.
Merideth was just cleared of all charges after a judge ruled that the camera drone's flight was indeed an invasion of privacy.
Sex offenders have the 1st Amendment right to photograph children in public. That's what a state Court of Appeals in Wisconsin ruled on Tuesday, striking down a law that make it illegal for registered sex offenders to take ordinary pictures of kids in public without getting permission from the parents.