If you're planning on doing an elaborate photo shoot in a foreign country, make sure you obtain the necessary permits and visas. Otherwise, you may risk arrest and deportation.
That's what happened to a couple of American photographers earlier this month. They, along with 13 others involved in the work, were kicked out of Indonesia for doing illegal photo shoots.
It seems that the viral content blog EliteDaily hasn't learned its lesson despite the current copyright infringement lawsuit being brought by photojournalist Peter Menzel. Another photo has been misused for a viral article, and photographers aren't happy with how the writer is responding.
Here’s a video that’s causing an uproar among those who care about photographers’ rights. It’s a 53-second clip recorded …
A white police officer in South Carolina is facing murder charges after shooting an unarmed black man in the back and killing him as he ran away. A bystander named Feidin Santana witnessed the whole incident on April 4th and managed to capture cell phone footage, which then became widely seen around the world and sparked fresh new outrage about police brutality.
Now, nearly two weeks after the shooting, the video is at the center of a new discussion: news outlets are being asked for a $10,000 fee if they wish to share the video.
A former Ryanair flight attendant has pleaded guilty to stealing items that passengers left behind on airplanes. He was busted after a man accidentally left his DSLR behind and then later found the same camera for sale on eBay.
Remember the story of Andrea Polito, the photographer who was publicly accused by a couple of holding their wedding photos hostage until they paid an extra $150 fee for a cover for their album?
It came to light afterward that the couple may have intentionally gone to the media with their story in order to destroy Polito and her business, and the photographer is now suing the couple for defamation, seeking up to $1 million in damages for the damage they did.
It was a month ago that a Texas lawmaker sparked a hoopla by proposing a bill that would limit the photography and filming of officers. If passed, anyone caught pointing a camera at an officer from within 25 feet could be charged with breaking the law.
Public outcry was swift and loud, and people even began sending death threats to the representative's office. Good news today: the bill is now dead.
NYC-based photographer Arne Svenson, whom we interviewed last month, has won a lengthy legal battle against people who claimed that he had invaded their privacy by taking pictures of them in their homes through open windows.
A Texas lawmaker recently attracted death threats after proposing a law that would make it illegal for photographers to take pictures of police officers from within 25 feet of them. Colorado is moving in the opposite direction.
The state is considering several bills that would increase police oversight, and one of the bills outlines punishments for police officers who interfere with people who are lawfully using their cameras.
In August I hired ImageRights International, a reputable copyright enforcement agency, to assume the routine handling of commercial infringements of my professional work. There are a lot. Starting in September 2014, companies began receiving letters from ImageRights’ partner law firms seeking to resolve these infringements on my behalf.
We reported over the weekend that Arkansas lawmakers had passed a privacy bill that could potentially kill street photography by requiring (in most cases) that photographers get written consent from strangers they photograph. Photographers who don't could get sued by their subjects.
The photography world was in an uproar over the bill and worked hard to get it vetoed by the deadline at the end of the day today. There's now some great news: the bill has been vetoed by Governor Asa Hutchinson.
Prominent photography groups are sounding the alarm about a new bill that was just passed by the Arkansas Senate. SB-79, the "Personal Rights Protection Act," would require photographers to get written consent from a stranger to feature their likeness in a photograph for most purposes.
The law could have a huge implication on street photography, whose practitioners thrive on the ability to capture life and people on camera without having to constantly stop and ask for releases from the subjects.
Photographer Marisha Camp and her brother Jessie were recently passing through West Virginia on a nationwide tour for a documentary series when they were reportedly confronted by "a hostile mob." The residents were suspicious of the photo taking and allegedly harassed and detained the duo until a trooper arrived and escorted the photographers from the scene.
Texas House of Representatives lawmaker Jason Villalba sparked quite a controversy earlier this month after proposing a bill that would make it illegal to photograph a police officer from within 25 feet. People were so angered by the idea that Villalba has received death threats from angry members of the public.
In an age in which pageviews are supreme, blogs and other online publications often ignore copyright laws, publishing viral photographs without permission in order to attract clicks and eyeballs. While much of the time this type of behavior flies under the radar, sometimes the unethical behavior comes back to bite the publishers hard when photographers do notice and take action.
Here's one of the latest examples: photojournalist Peter Menzel has filed a lawsuit against the blog EliteDaily for sharing his photos in a viral post without permission.
A week after Los Angeles agreed to train its law enforcement that public photography is not a crime, a bill has been proposed in Texas that would make it a crime for citizens to photograph or film police from within 25 feet of where the are.
An apartment complex near Orlando, Florida, is receiving a torrent of bad publicity after one of its tenant contracts was published online. The document forces tenants to agree to a $10,000 fine if they post a bad review of the complex online, and it claims copyright to all photographs taken by tenants in the complex.
There have been a number of cases in recent years of people getting struck and killed by trains after doing photo or film shoots on train tracks. One of the cases last year involved the filming of a movie titled "Midnight Rider." While filming on a narrow trestle bridge, a train passed through and killed one of the crew members.
The director, Randall Miller, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and has now been sentenced to two years in prison and eight years of probation for his recklessness.
The woman who was captured in a viral video last year attacking a drone photographer and calling him a "pervert" may have her charges dropped and record cleared.
Los Angeles has agreed to pay a $50,000 settlement to three photographers after they were detained by LA County Sheriffs while taking pictures in public places. As part of the settlement, the city will also teach its sheriff deputies that photography is not a crime.
A US court has ruled in favor of Bob Marley's family in a lawsuit they filed to get photos of the late reggae musician off unauthorized merchandise. The ruling will impact how iconic portraits of Marley are used for commercial purposes by third parties.
Should you be able to patent the idea of online photo contests? Regardless of your opinion on the matter, someone has, and that patent is now being used to sue a number of small photo websites.
The FAA has confirmed a leak that emerged this past weekend by officially unveiling its proposed set of rules governing commercial drone flights. The guidelines are more lax than many people feared, and they represent a huge step toward the legalization of commercial drone flights -- including for aerial photography purposes.
A newly leaked document by the Federal Aviation Administration may offer a first look at upcoming regulations for drones, and the laws discussed appear to be somewhat favorable for photographers who fly camera drones.
Japan has confiscated the passport of a photographer who was planning to travel to Syria, saying that the move was necessary to protect the man's life. It is reportedly the first time the country's government has ever taken such action.
If you'd like a long and fruitful career as a street photographer, Saudi Arabia might not be the most welcoming place for you to pursue it. Shooting public photos and sharing them online is becoming more and more popular in the Middle Eastern kingdom, but many practitioners are unaware that the country's strict cybercrime law could bring down huge fines and even jail time for their snapshots.
If you're anywhere near the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona this Sunday while the Super Bowl is going on, you should keep your camera drone stored away. The FAA is warning the public that the Super Bowl is a "No Drone Zone": fly your drone anywhere within 30 miles of the stadium during the game and you're breaking the law.
Here's a strange legal rumble that just hit the courts: software giant Adobe is suing clothing giant Forever 21 for pirating copies of Photoshop.
Yesterday we reported that a DJI Phantom quadcopter operator had accidentally crashed his camera drone onto the lawn of the White House at 3 in the morning, causing a security panic among those tasked with ensuring the President's safety (later reports suggest the man was drunk).
DJI wants to make sure this type of incident never happens again: the company is issuing a mandatory firmware update that will disable its camera drones in Washington DC's no fly zone.
A photographer has filed a copyright lawsuit against Nike, accusing the global athletic brand of ripping off his photograph of Michael Jordan to create its iconic "Jumpman" logo for Air Jordan merchandise.
Renowned Belgian artist Luc Tuymans has been found guilty in a plagiarism case after basing one of his paintings on a photo by photojournalist Katrijn Van Giel. Tuymans has been ordered to cease exhibiting and reproducing his painting, and will be fined €500,000 (~$580,000) if he does not comply.
Update: There have been new developments. Please see below.
There's a new bill passing through the Arkansas State Legislature that may be concerning to photographers who operate camera drones. The bill is titled, "Concerning The Use Of An Unmanned Vehicle Or Aircraft That Captures Images; To Create The Criminal Offenses; To Provide For Civil Liability," and it criminalizes certain camera drone usage and the possession of photos captured during that usage.
Hello fellow photographers. My name is Joshua Resnick. I am a stock photographer, but what I am going to tell you potentially affects all photographers. I wanted to bring to your attention a lawsuit I am involved in that I think could put the whole industry at risk if things don’t go well.
I am being sued in federal court for hundreds of thousands of dollars by a model I worked with in January 2013. This is a model that I paid, and who signed a release allowing me to sell her images through stock photo agencies. Why I am I being sued? It revolves around images that got misused or were just outright stolen and the model is blaming me for it.
The world is going to pieces and people like [Ansel] Adams and [Edward] Weston are photographing rocks! -- Henri Cartier-Bresson
What better way to conjure up a longing for freedom than to evoke the name of that avuncular figure of American photography Ansel Adams. It’s a name synonymous with photography, with stunning landscapes that leave one with an unbounded sense of liberty. So why not use Ansel’s name to grace a bill that sets forth to “restore the first amendment rights of photographers?”
The Federal Aviation Administration is notoriously strict about the use of aerial camera drones for commercial purposes. Much of the commercial imagery you'll find online was captured "illegally" without the permission of the agency.
Yesterday, realtor Douglas Trudeau of Tucson, Arizona became the first real estate agent in the country to be given permission to use his drone for his property listings.
A new "Ansel Adams Act" introduced in Congress could have big implications on photographers' rights across the United States. The bill aims to "restore the First Amendment rights of photographers" by removing restrictions on taking photos in public places.
Earlier this month, National Geographic photographer Tomas van Houtryve had one of his photographs selected by TIME magazine as one of the Top 10 Photos of 2014. It was a high honor, but also one that opened an unexpected Pandora's Box for Van Houtryve: his photos began appearing on third-party products on Amazon without his permission.
And that's not all: Van Houtryve says Amazon isn't responding to his requests to have the products completely taken down.
My name is Abe Van Dyke. I am a photojournalist who was arrested by the Milwaukee County Sheriffs department for being on Interstate 43 photographing protestors on 12/19/14 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This is my story.
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.
Want to learn the basics of US copyright law without having to spend eons going through imageless websites and backbreaking textbooks? Check out Bound by Law. It's a comic book that translates abstract and confusing copyright laws into easy to understand "visual metaphors."
By the time you're through with the 72-page comic, you'll know quite a bit about the basics of copyright law, including fair use, infringement, and public domain.
On July 14, 2012, I received a desperate email from a photographer whom I had only met once briefly at a public appearance. He was terribly distraught, and nobody would help him. In his letter, he said that I was his last resort.
His name is Nelson Tang, and he is a very gentle soul, kind and soft-spoken, a new immigrant from Hong Kong with only a rough command of the English language. At the time, he and his wife were adjusting to life with an 18 month old son, she was a server in a restaurant and he worked for a non-profit. Financially, they were living paycheck to paycheck.
While covering the "re-occupation” protest in Mong Kok on Thursday night, an Apple Daily cameraman was arrested by police after he allegedly assaulted a police officer with his camera and then resisted arrest.
There's just one problem with this story, told to the press by police: it's not true. The video above captured by a South China Morning Post reporter paints a very different picture.
The FAA has been working on a set of regulations for commercial drone use for months now, and according to the most recent reports, the results of all that work are some extremely strict rules that include requiring a full-blown pilot's license if you intend to sell what you're capturing.
The South Korean government is threatening selfie stick retailers with fines of up to $27K and jail time over some of the group selfie products they're selling, and it's all because of electromagnetic radiation. Feeling lost yet? Us too.
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.
According to an oft-forgotten clause in EU copyright laws, it is illegal to publish nighttime photos of certain public buildings in certain countries without asking permission from the owners of the buildings.
So why isn’t everyone who captures and posts images of iconic building such as France’s Eiffel Tower prosecuted then? Because the clause and accompanying law are rather vague, only accepted by certain states, and all-round confusing to interpret.
The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill is under fire after photographer Justin Cook found out that they not only used a photo of his without permission, but also denied that they could have possibly known such image was not free to use.
Earlier this year, we shared an interactive map showing where you aren't allowed to fly camera drones. The list is generally pretty simple: national parks, military bases, and 5 miles around major airports.
Here's another item to add to that list: major sport stadiums.
The movie industry has officially updated its anti-piracy policies to include the need to turn off ‘wearable devices,’ such as Google Glass and other wearable gadgets with cameras in them (e.g. wearable lifelogging cameras).