There have been multiple stories of drones getting shot out of the sky with shotguns in the past couple of years. Last November, we reported that a New Jersey man was arrested after shooting down a camera drone that was taking pictures over his property.
Now another drone pilot, Eric Joe, has just won a lawsuit against a disgruntled neighbor who blasted Joe's hexacopter out of the sky with a shotgun.
There are a number of easy-to-use model release form apps out there already, but Snapwire wants to do better. The photo marketplace has launched its own free app called Releases. Designed for professional photographers, the app lets you easily create, sign, and send model and properly releases using your iPhone.
A federal court has dismissed a copyright infringement lawsuit filed against Nike by photographer Jacobus Rentmeester, who claimed that the sports juggernaut had ripped off his 1984 photo of Michael Jordan for its own photo and its iconic Jumpman logo.
Should photographers be able to include copyrighted public building and sculptures in photos without having to worry about payment or permissions? The concept is called "freedom of panorama," and it's currently under attack over in Europe.
Being a photographer in the digital age presents a number of excellent advantages along with a collection of new concerns. Sharing your images with the world and gaining exposure has never been easier, but the risk that someone may decide to steal your work is also increasing. Protecting your images on the web should be at the forefront of your thought process when uploading a new potential masterpiece. To help you out, we have established a list of ten sites that can assist you in your creative endeavor.
When signing up for virtually every photo sharing service, you'll be asked to agree to a lengthy terms of service document that's filled with legalese. If you're confused by the text and want that agreement spelled out for you in simpler terms, check out Terms of Service; Didn't Read (TOSDR), a new site that's dedicated to explaining terms and giving out report cards based on the conditions.
This past weekend, journalist Josiah Daniel Ryan visited a public pier in New York City to shoot a video of some boats there. He was then confronted by a number of security guards, one of whom told him that tripods "are not allowed on New York City property."
Back in April, we reported that there was a new bill in Colorado that aimed to protect citizens' rights to record police and to punish officers who interfere with those rights. Well, good news for photographers: the bill has been signed into law.
A Seattle-based fine art photographer is suing Pinterest for infringing upon his copyrights and other intellectual property rights. Christopher Boffoli claims that his photographs have been posted over 5,000 times on the public site, and that Pinterest isn’t doing enough to “protect photographers and their work”.
The Dallas Police Department has officially released a new general order that's meant to inform officers on photographers' rights. The document, titled "Public Recording of Official Acts," warns officers that they cannot interfere with a person photographing or filming their activities as long as the recording is being done in an appropriate way.
In the age of digital photography, many of us turn to online cloud solutions to help us backup our precious moments. However, the question that many of us want to know is what permissions a perspective service has with our content. With a form of hysteria sweeping the Web, we have decided to take a look at the industry’s top storage solutions and what their terms of service say about the files you upload. By using any of these solutions, you are automatically accepting their terms.
Imagine assembling a portfolio of over 4,000 photographs and then being forced to make it disappear or face life-altering consequences; that's the situation sophomore Anthony Mazur is currently facing at Flower Mound High School in his Texas hometown. After discovering the love of sports photography, the Lewisville Independent School District is now claiming that Anthony’s photographs are theirs and that he has no right to use them.
Artist Richard Prince is notorious in the art world for taking other people's work, "appropriating" them as his own with various changes, and then selling them for large amounts of dough. His latest endeavor is once again raising eyebrows: Prince is selling other people's Instagram photos for up to $100,000 each.
In today’s society, it seems that no knowledge is more prudent for photographers to learn than the rights of themselves and their photographs. Here at PetaPixel, we wanted to create a comprehensive one-stop guide to your constitutional rights to capture the world around you and what you are permitted to do with those photos.
Yesterday we shared how one photographer was surprised when a casual request to "share" her Facebook photo turned out to be a request to use it in a national TV ad. Unfortunately for photographers, it seems more and more companies are requesting photos in similarly subtle ways.
Three years ago, a woman named Felicia Anderson won a judgement against the city of Atlanta after she was arrested while photographing the arrest of a neighbor. She later complained that the city had largely ignored the court order. This week a judge agreed with her and held Atlanta in contempt for not taking steps to uphold photographers' rights.
For more than a decade, Brooklyn-based professional photographer Shawn Thomas has been an outspoken activist for photographers' rights to photograph and record in public on the streets of New York City. In the process, he has been arrested and jailed at least six times but never convicted of any crime.
This week, Thomas is making headlines again after posting a video showing how he put an end to an "unlawful search" in just 7 seconds while pointing a camera at officers.
There have been a number of controversial bills and laws lately, some of which have been pulled or vetoed after protests from photographers and the public. The latest legislation to raise eyebrows comes from the state of Wyoming, which passed a new law in March that prohibits collecting data about the environment to share with the government. Problem is, the wording is so broad that it infringes on photographers' rights.
Last week, an Australian mother took to the Internet to publicly shame a 'creep' she caught taking pictures of her children at a shopping center. After the story blew up and sparked all kinds of outrage, it turns out the man was simply taking a selfie with a Darth Vader cutout to send to his kids.
If you're ever asked by an airline to stop taking pictures on their private property -- on their plane, for example -- you might want to obey their instructions and put your camera away. They're legally allowed to ban photography.
Motorola Mobility has been ordered by a court ruling to fork over $10.2 million to Fujifilm for violating one of the Japanese company's camera patents in its mobile phones.
Photographer Jason Lanier is on a mission to end "discrimination against photographers." He just posted the video above showing two encounters he recently had with law enforcement while doing a photo shoot in San Francisco. In both cases, the officials noticed his "nice" camera and high-end equipment and questioned him to see if he was shooting commercially without a proper permit (which can cost hundreds of dollars).
Some drone operator gave a pilot a scare this past Tuesday after flying the quadcopter way too close to an airport. A Virgin America flight reportedly came within 200 feet of the drone while landing at Dallas Love Field airport. To put that distance in perspective, consider this: the Airbus A319 airplane involved has a wingspan of about 117 feet.
Baltimore photojournalist J. M. Giordano of the City Paper has been on the front lines of protests in the wake of Freddie Gray's death in police custody. Yesterday morning, Giordano and another protestor were apparently swarmed by police officers and beaten -- and the whole thing was caught on camera.
Footage that was recorded moments before a US marshal destroyed a woman's cell phone has now emerged. It turns out the phone was shattered and no longer usable, but the footage was intact in the internal storage, giving us a second point of view into what happened.
In the video above, NBC Los Angeles shares and discusses what transpired in the moments leading up to the police encounter that everyone is talking about now.
Going a do-it-yourself (DIY) route is popular among photographers who want the benefits of a certain product without having to shell out money in order to buy the actual thing. Here's something you might not have considered though: building a DIY version of something that's patented can actually constitute patent infringement, and sharing those designs with others can land you in even deeper trouble.
Yesterday we shared a startling video in which a woman who was pointing her smartphone camera at a group of law enforcement officers had the device snatched from her hand, smashed against the ground, and then kicked back at her. It turns out the man who did it is a deputy U.S. marshal, and the U.S. Marshals Service says it's now investigating the incident.
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.