Hero or Villain? Prolific ‘Copyright Troll’ Lawyer Disbarred in NY
Attorney Richard P. Liebowitz has been disbarred by the Supreme Court of the State of New York following a lengthy years-long suspension.
Attorney Richard P. Liebowitz has been disbarred by the Supreme Court of the State of New York following a lengthy years-long suspension.
Richard Liebowitz, one of the most prolific copyright infringement lawyers in the state of New York, was recently slapped with a $103,500 fine for his actions in a recent case before being chastised for being a dishonest "copyright troll." Photographers should pay close attention.
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.
This is just... strange. California lawyer Svitlana Sangary has been found guilty of deceptive advertising and is now facing six months suspension and two and a half years probation after it was found that she was Photoshopping herself into images with celebrities and posting them on her website's Publicity page.
The Daniel Morel vs AFP/Getty Images saga has been going on since 2010 when the agencies first pulled his photos off of Twitter and distributed them without permission to several major publications. Now the saga has finally ended, and ended on very happy terms for Morel, who is walking away from the deal $1.2 million richer.