Law

Back in June I covered Fortarock, a fantastic metal festival in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. I had the opportunity to shoot bands like Dragonforce, Watain, Týr, Alestorm and Arch Enemy, all of whom are not only really fun to photograph, but also extremely talented musicians.

Heads up: if you sell your photos as microstock, companies can use your work in big ways for a very, very small payment. A photographer just found that out the hard way after he found one of his photos featured on a number of products in Walmart.

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.

Egypt has launched an investigation after a Danish photographer released photos and a video showing himself and a woman climbing the Great Pyramid of Giza and doing a nude photo shoot at the top.

You may have heard some nightmare wedding photography stories in the past, but probably nothing like this: a wedding photographer was arrested in Texas this past weekend after allegedly having sex with a guest, peeing on a tree, and making violent threats toward police officers.

Like many professional photographers, my main camera is a bit of a beast. A Fuji X-T2, usually with a big lens, and always with a battery grip on it. It’s a bit big to go traveling with, and although it’s not as big as my Nikon D600 and grip that I used to use, it still warrants the travel/side-arm camera I bought in the D600 days.

Adobe is being sued by a commercial photographer and videographer who claims that he lost $250,000 worth of work when a bug in Premiere Pro permanently deleted a huge number of his photo and video files.

The U.S. Senate has passed a bill that will give authorities permission to shoot down private drones that are determined to be "threats." The proposed law has sparked an outcry from civil liberties organizations.

A real estate photographer has filed a lawsuit against Zillow, accusing the popular online real estate database of using his photos without permission.

A Montana photographer has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Netflix, accusing the media juggernaut of using one of his storm photos without permission for the hit sci-fi show Stranger Things.

South African photographer Graeme Williams was attending the opening of the Johannesburg Art Fair earlier this month when he was shocked to see his own photo on a gallery wall with credit being given to African American artist Hank Willis Thomas.

A few days ago, I awoke to a text message from a friend who lives halfway around the world telling me that he had unexpectedly seen one of my images on a FOX News story. The image was from a photoshoot that I had done of Richard “Old Man” Harrison from the television show Pawn Stars, which airs on the History Channel. However, after looking it up and seeing what photo he was talking about, I was surprised. The photo I was met with wasn’t even one I remembered taking.

A festival in the Netherlands has come up with a strange response to the EU's new GDPR privacy laws: it's asking attendees who don't want to be photographed to opt out by putting a red dot on their forehead.

A Virginia federal court sparked quite a controversy among photographers last month when it ruled that copying photos found on the Internet is fair use. Now a European Union court has just issued a landmark ruling that states you can't simply republish a photo because it's freely accessible online -- you need the photographer's permission first.

Back in 2016, photographer Jairo Melara of the Los Angeles-based photography company Fifth District did a photo shoot of a model wearing roller skates at Venice Beach. Melara says he was surprised earlier this year when the band Gorillaz released its music video for the song "Humility" that features a strangely similar look and feel.

Shubnum Khan is a South African author and artist who's going public with a warning she learned the hard way: be very careful to read the fine print when signing a photographer's model release.

Folsom Street Fair, the annual BSDM fair in San Francisco, upset photographers in 2016 with its "Ask First" campaign that asked photographers to receive permission before taking photos of people on the public streets of the fair. This year, the same event organizers have released a warning that compares taking photos without consent to sexual assault.

Homeland Security is running a campaign to teach Americans how to "recognize the signs of terrorism-related suspicious activity," and one of the signs to look out for is photography.

Back in 2010, the United States Postal Service (USPS) released a now-famous Statue of Liberty "forever" stamp. But it was soon discovered that the small stamp had a big problem: instead of showing the actual Statue of Liberty in New York, the selected photo shows the copyrighted replica that's found in Las Vegas. Now a federal court has ordered that the USPS must pay $3.5 million for its mistake.

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.

Daryl Aiden Yow is a Singapore-based photographer and social media influencer who has over 100,000 followers on Instagram. He's at the center of controversy today after it was found that many of his Instagram photos were actually uncredited images shot by others.

The EU has a new data protection law, the so-called GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation, or as we Germans like to call it: “Datenschutzgrundverordnung” (Gesundheit!). The rules took effect on May 25th and so far it’s pretty chaotic: in the EU we cannot reach some newspapers in the outside world because they cannot comply with the new rules.

Update: Fox News claims it licensed Robinson's images legally through another channel after being directly rejected by the photographer. See the network's statement below.

Over the weekend, Ellicott City, Maryland was pummeled by massive rainfall, which triggered devastating flash floods through the historic district of town. Resident Max Robinson was trapped in an apartment building near Main St and Maryland Ave when he started documenting what transpired on Twitter.

Photographers Tony and Chelsea Northrup were shocked when they discovered one of their photos being used on a product's packaging without their knowledge or permission. They then sued the photo thief and collected AU$60,000 (~$45,000) for the offense. Here's a 26-minute video in which they share the story of how it all happened.

Heads up if you're a drone-flying photographer in the United States: the government may soon require a physical license plate on the outside of your drone.

A Georgia mother is filing a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against a local photographer's photo company, accusing it of publishing an indecent photo of her 15-year-old daughter at a school dance.

Photographer Sean R. Heavey was watching the hit series Stranger Things on Netflix when he spotted a storm cloud that looked strangely familiar. It turns out the show had apparently used one of Heavey's photos while creating the scene, and Heavey isn't happy about it.

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.

Photographer David Slater's legal nightmare surrounding that monkey selfie snapped in 2011 isn't over. A US court has decided not to toss the copyright lawsuit filed against Slater by PETA on the monkey's behalf, despite Slater and PETA reaching a settlement last year.

In September 2017, an Ohio newspaper photojournalist was shot by a deputy at a traffic stop when a tripod was mistaken for a gun. Now lawyers are arguing that the deputy "reasonably" believed that the tripod was a gun and that the photographer's "negligence" may have led to the shooting. The state has also decided that the deputy won't face any charges for the incident.

A well-known insect photographer has filed a $2.7 million copyright infringement lawsuit against a pest-control company. He accuses the businesses of using his photos without permission on its website.