Here's a note caution: when tagging Santa Claus in your Facebook photos, make sure you tag the right one.
Photographer Brian Matus had a strange experience this past weekend after tagging Santa in three of his holiday photographs. He tells us that shortly after doing so, he received a "legal notice" in his Facebook inbox.
A federal judge has decided that it's okay for police officers to befriend Instagram users with fake accounts in order to gain access to photos shared through the service.
A New York woman has been awarded $1.12 million in damages after being arrested back in 2009 while taking photographs outside a military base.
A couple years ago, I read a story about a Washington wedding photographer that was threatened with a $300,000 lawsuit by an ex-client. The story then seemed to drop out of sight. Sometime thereafter, I decided to put on my investigative reporter mustache and do some sleuthing. Was the threat real? Did a lawsuit actually get filed? If so, what was the result?
Easy-to-use legal document app Shake has long offered a number of cookie cutter agreements that make it easy for photographers and other creatives/freelancers to get the signed paperwork they need to get the job done.
And as of today, they’re adding to their offerings with a new image and model release template that will be particularly useful for photographers.
Back in August 2014, we reported on the legal battle between photographer Peter Wolf and a company called Capstone. Wolf had received three patents on a method of distributing sports photos online. The problem was, the patents described common workflows that countless photographers use around the world.
The latest development today will have those photographers resting a bit easier: the courts have ruled that the patents are invalid because they aren't inventive enough and because they simply describe convention steps that many people use.
Understanding your legal rights as a photographer can often be confusing and overwhelming. From copyright infringement to fair use to DMCA, there are a number of legal concepts that every photographer should be familiar with. Here are eight important legal cases that are illustrative of these concepts and the importance of registering your copyright.
While browsing through my image search results on PIXSY (a new service that finds and invoices image theft for you), I was surprised to see my picture for sale on Etsy (above). My immediate reaction:
What an ugly mousepad. I’d never print my photo like this.
The seller seems to be stealing thousands of photos. How could Etsy let this happen?
Who had the nerve to think they could do this?
So my picture was the party and I wasn’t invited. I decided to see what I could do to notify the seller and contact Etsy about the problem.
It's not unreasonable to expect that almost every person reading this has seen 'nanny photographer' Vivian Maier's work. Whether in galleries, online or in the much-talked-about documentary 'Finding Vivian Maier,' her photos have now made their way around the world many times over and she has been named one of the greats of 20th century photography.
But if you hold a deep appreciation for Maier's work, we suggest you get your fill while you can, because a legal battle is threatening (and, in fact, succeeding) to pull Maier's work from the public eye... potentially for years.
Do you have dreams of being an outspoken reviewer of photography books? Certain provinces of Iran might not be the best place for you to launch that career. A pair of Iran photographers were recently sentenced to a total of 75 lashes for publishing negative reviews about an official's photography book.
Just got your hands on a drone and can't wait to use it to shoot aerial photographs? First, make sure you only use it where it can legally fly. If you're not sure where to look for this info, there's a new website designed just for you.
It's called Don't Fly Drones Here (DFDH), and is an interactive map that shows off limit areas of the US by shading them in with red.
Is Amazon attempting to patent an age old photography lighting technique? A recently published patent seems to suggest that, and it's getting some photographers up in arms.
In the age of the Internet, with sites like Yelp often being the first stop for anybody looking for a service (say, photography) they've never used before, it's no surprise that pros are trying to keep their star ratings as high as possible.
What is surprising is the news that some photographers are keeping their reviews positive by threatening to sue anybody who writes something negative.
One of the judges of the National Transportation Safety Board (the NTSB) ruled yesterday that the FAA has no authority to regulate drones, striking down a six-year-old ban on commercial drones and saving a Swiss drone operator $10,000 that the FAA was trying to fine him.
As it turns out, we all might have some skin in the Daniel Morel vs. AFP/Getty Images copyright game; and we're not just talking about emotional investment here, there are serious precedents being set.
At first, The Atlantic's profile of the duo behind the mega-popular @HistoryInPics Twitter feed reads like your standard "young geniuses find lucrative economic niche in this crazy new media world" piece.
Purloining somebody else's photos to promote your photography business has become depressingly common lately, but occasionally a new cretin comes forward to push the practice to a new level of sadness.
Getty Images and Agence France Presse are avid protectors of their own copyright privileges. But when the chaussure is on the other foot?
Haitian photographer Daniel Morel continues to find out that it's a whole different ball game, as the agencies try to evade the $1.22 million penalty levied against them for stealing eight of Morel's images of the aftermath of his country's devastating 2010 earthquake.
You might not thing there was much economic clout left in the Kodak brand, but apparently it still carries some weight in the courtroom.
The one-time photography monolith recently won a $76 million judgement from Japanese electronics conglomerate Ricoh to settle a dispute over patent licenses and royalties.
From antique pistols to high-powered assault rifles, Instagram has emerged as the leading online marketplace for guns. And, even more troubling, it seems few of the sales violate the law or even Instagram policy.
Seven sports photographers are suing the National Football League, Getty Images and the Associated Press in a complex case that argues the agencies went too far in allowing their images to be freely used for promotions by the league.
New York Republican mayoral candidate Joe Lhota may be running as a law and order guy, but apparently the "law" part doesn't cover intellectual property.
Turns out nine of the images used in a recent Lhota campaign ad -- an ad meant to illustrate what a mess the Big Apple used to be -- were taken without permission from Flickr users, several of whom are not too happy about it.
Media outlets may need to start considering the possible psychological effects of difficult assignments on their photojournalists in the wake of an Australian photographer's claim of crippling post-traumatic stress.
Normally, we wouldn't give much attention to the thoughts of an editor/publisher for a small community newspaper. But the response to photographer Kristen Pierson's notice of copyright infringement and invoice for payment is such a classic compendium of bad thinking on intellectual property that it would be a disservice not to share it ... just so you know what you're up against.
Prestigious agency Magnum Photos says it is about to roll out a paid membership system in hopes of turning illegal downloaders into paying customers. The move comes a little more than a year after the agency did away with watermarks on its main site, reasoning that they did little to discourage determined downloaders.
British photographer Jason Sheldon has won a settlement of £20,000 (about $32,300 US) over a stolen image of his (seen above), after initially being offered less than one percent of that.
Be careful when photographing sculptures for commercial purposes -- you could quickly find yourself on the losing end of a copyright infringement case and being forced to pay a lot of money.
This happened back in 2011, when photographer Mike Hipple was forced to pay up after shooting stock photos of a public art installation in Seattle. Now it has happened again: a court has ordered the United States Postal Service to pay a whopping $684,844 to sculptor Frank Gaylord for using a photograph of the Korean War Veterans Memorial on a stamp.
Photographer/rights crusader Shawn Nee is back in the news, this time after he was detained and handcuffed by Los Angeles police for "interfering with an investigation" while taking photos in a public place.
Sob alert: Fashion/celebrity photographer Terry Richardson says he's likely to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars due to a recent ruling in a suit against Lady Gaga.
Actresses Halle Berry and Jennifer Garner testified before the California Legislature on Tuesday in support of an anti-paparazzi bill that would ban taking pictures of children without their parents' written consent.