A Canadian judge has ordered Google to pay a Montreal woman for the violation of her privacy after she found an embarrassing photograph of herself on Google Street View. Google's automated cameras had captured the woman sitting on her doorstep, leaning forward with a portion of her cleavage exposed.
Rap mogul Suge Knight could be facing some serious jail time after stealing a photographer's camera. By "serious," we mean up to 30 years.
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.
If there’s one time you really shouldn’t steal an image and (poorly) Photoshop it, it's probably while campaigning for a Senate seat. Colorado Republican candidates Tim Neville, Tony Sanchez and Laura Woods recently learned this lesson the hard way.
What would you do if you found your photograph misused, not by a celebrity or a company, but by the head of government of a country? That's the question facing Cambridge, Massachusetts-based photographer Bimal Nepal.
Nepal, a photojournalist whose work has appeared in National Geographic, recently found his photograph shared without permission by the prime minister of India.
In a bill meant to bring California's privacy laws into a drone-heavy 21st century, the state just signed an act into law that will make it both illegal and very expensive for anybody seeking to invade someone else's privacy by taking photos of them with a camera drone.
Nearly $2 million in cameras and production equipment were stolen from three Fremont, California businesses over the weekend. Thieves broke into the offices of Black Magic Design, Mac House Productions, and Core Microsystems, grabbing pricey high-end gear and hauling it off by the boxful.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration and one of its agents, Timothy Sinnigen, are being sued by a woman who claims they used the photos on a seized phone of hers to hijack her identity and create a fake Facebook profile though which they hoped to bust an alleged New York drug ring.
Update: The company has responded to our request for comment and fixed the issue. See full update at the bottom.
Dick Smith is a leading tech retailer in both New Zealand and Australia, but as an anonymous reader showed us this morning, they might have goofed up in a big way in a recent ad they posted on their Dick Smith NZ Facebook page.
As you can see from the screenshot above, they seem to have 'appropriated' an iStock image as the background... without even taking the time to remove the watermark.
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.
A New Jersey resident was arrested last Friday after allegedly firing a shotgun at and successfully hitting a drone that was taking photographs of a nearby home undergoing some renovations.
Ever wonder what it would cost you to run afoul of Yellowstone's anti-camera drone rules? There's probably not a chart hanging up anywhere, but if you're a Dutch tourist and you crash a DJI Phantom into the Grand Prismatic Spring -- the world's third largest hot spring -- the bill will come out to $3,200+.
If you've been following photography news -- and given you're reading this we'd say there's a good chance that's the case -- you've probably heard something along the lines of "Texas just legalized upskirting photography!" And while that's not entirely untrue, the facts are a bit less sensational.
We've heard of many lawsuits where an artist outright steals an image from a photographer -- that can get pretty ugly -- but what about an artist hiring another photographer to recreate an image that is pretty much identical to the one they wanted to use, but weren't allowed to?
That's the crux of a lawsuit between celebrity photographer Bonnie Schiffman and musician Rod Stewart, who, it seems, recreated an iconic photograph of Schiffman's after she refused to let the artist use it.
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.
A recently-released product by Microsoft that allows content creators to embed digital images on their websites is being called a “massive infringement” of copyright images in a lawsuit filed by Getty Images against the computer giant.
There's a new law in the works in The Philippines that may soon make it illegal to photograph strangers without their permission... even if they just appear by chance in the background of your photos. According to a government official, even selfies with people appearing in the background would be a no-no.
Yellowstone is no longer taking a slap-on-the-wrist, "we'll let you off with a warning" approach to people who violate the park's ban on camera drones. Egged on by several incidents since the ban went into effect, the park is starting to file criminal charges against violators that could mean $5,000 fines and/or 6 months in jail.
Photography drones are facing a perilous atmosphere of distrust and legal chaos. In these circumstances, even small mistakes can have big consequences. A shift in public sentiment against private drone usage could easily result in the application of restrictive regulations, or perhaps even conditional bans.
Rooftopping -- taking photos from the top of tall structures, often illegally trespassing to get there -- is a favorite pastime of many daredevil photographers, but it's also dangerous and could land you in a whole heap of trouble, as one Russian tourist is quickly finding out.
In the world of patents, some money, a lawyer and the carefully crafting a few hundred words can go a long way -- for better or worse.
One such example is the case of Peter Wolf, owner of Photocrazy, a company that takes photos of sporting events such as triathlons, then offers prints to the participants by matching their race number to an internalized, searchable database.
And although this concept has been around for quite some time in various forms, EFF reveals that Wolf managed to get three patents on this generalized idea and is now attempting to squash other, smaller operations that use a similar method.
It's a tale as old as time: 81-year-old photographer in East Sussex takes pictures of bachelorette parties, bachelorette parties don't seem to mind but strangers call the cops on him, cops say he's being 'antisocial' and ask for his name, he refuses, they threaten to arrest him.
Okay... maybe not as old as time, or even normal, but that's what happened to one photographer in the UK and it seems the cops may have actually had the right to arrest the man in this particular scenario.
In its updated 1,222-page "Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, Third Edition" released yesterday, the US Copyright Office took the side of Wikimedia in their argument with nature photographer David Slater when the office wrote that they cannot register works by monkeys.
Cop pulled a gun on me tonight for asking a question. #ferguson— raffephoto (@raffephoto) August 20, 2014
By now we all know that the stories of media/police confrontation from Ferguson, MO have two sides. On the one hand, seemingly unnecessary arrests of major photojournalists had even the President of the United States condemning that officers' actions. On the other, a photojournalist on the ground explained why he was embarrassed by the way the media is acting in the area.
And yet, it's hard to imagine there being a good reason why, on a relatively peaceful protest day, a police officer answered a journalist's seemingly innocent question by pulling and pointing a gun at him.
More than two years after being arrested, injured and strip-searched after taking pictures of two NYPD police officers performing a stop and frisk, a Brooklyn man has been awarded a nice legal pay day to the tune of $125K.
One of Denmark’s most photographed attractions, a Little Mermaid statue, comes with a strange caveat: it can’t be photographed. Or rather, a photograph of it can't be used in a publication of any sort, even for journalistic purposes, without a big fat invoice finding its way to your door.
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.
Only days after the NYPD sent out a city-wide memo to officers reminding them that the recording of their activity is allowed, Randy Credico, an upcoming candidate for New York Governor, was arrested, handcuffed and put in jail for recording the aggressive arresting of a man by two officers in street clothes.
The NYPD has sent out an internal memo that tells officers they aren’t allowed to take action to stop someone from photographing or filming them. This comes a whopping two years after Washington DC’s police chief sent out an almost identical memo.
David Slater, the photographer who is currently embroiled in an argument (and quite possibly, soon to be embroiled in a lawsuit) with Wikimedia over the famous 'monkey selfie' images, recently spoke to ITN to clarify his position on the whole 'who owns the copyright' argument.
A New Jersey police officer is making headlines for how he responded Monday to a resident taking pictures in a public building. When the resident, one Steve Wronko, explained that it was his constitutional right, the officer told Wronko that "Obama has decimated the friggin' constitution, so ... if he doesn't follow the constitution, we don't have to."
At least one of the class action lawsuits against Nikon about the sensor spec issue found on some D600 cameras has been settled, and settled in the best possible way for the users participating in this suit.
The controversy surrounding the monkey selfies above, which were taken by an endangered crested black macaque using photographer David Slater's equipment, is heating up once again as Wikipedia parent Wikimedia refuses to remove the photo from its commons library, claiming that Slater does not own the copyright.
This post is something I’ve struggled with for months, and debated even writing. But it’s time to share my story, and explain why I’ve been absent.
The next time you want to photograph some cool graffiti, you might want to think twice... you could get sued by the artist if that picture makes it big.
After the popular Canadian drama 30 Vies aired, graffiti artist Alexandre Veilleux recognized a tag of his in the opening sequence. Now, Veilleux -- who goes by Alex Scaner in the graffiti community -- is seeking $45k in damages from Radio-Canada and Productions Aetios Inc., stating they used his work without permission.
Central Iowa Boy Scout Troop No. 111 received a little more when they bargained for during their three-week road trip.
Instagram is a popular platform for celebrities to share photos of their lavish lifestyles, but it's also a social network in which many photos are published without permission and without credit to the original creator. Both of those things happened recently with an image posted by Ludacris.
Earlier this year, a New York judge ruled that US search warrants applied to digital data, even if the data wasn’t stored domestically. The ruling came about after Microsoft was asked to hand over the user information and contested the warrant because the info was stored on servers located in Dublin, Ireland.
In the ongoing battle to protect users’s privacy, Microsoft has made their stance very clear. But so has the government with a brief filed last week.
The American Civil Liberties Union is helping four individuals take the United States Government to court over something called the Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Initiative.
The program has received wide criticism recently, led in large part by a photographer who made the FBI's suspicious activity list for taking pictures of a piece of public art called the Rainbow Swash.
Yesterday, the story of two DJI Phantom quadcopters endangering an NYPD helicopter made the rounds online. Initial reports claimed that the two 'drones' were flying right at the helicopter forcing the NYPD pilot to take evasive action before following the Phantoms back to their source and taking the RC pilots into custody.
The air traffic control recording and several statements from the pilots themselves, however, seem to run contrary to what the NYPD is claiming, making it look like the helicopter was never in danger and, in fact, chased down the pilots with no idea what to even charge them with.
Last weekend, following the Fourth of July festivities, we shared a wonderful video of a Florida fireworks show as seen by a drone recording from within the show, perilously close to the colorful explosives. It wasn't the only such video to air post-Independence Day, however.
Others, including the video above shot by Robert Hartline in Nashville, TN also received tens of thousands of hits and, as it turns out, a bit more attention than he bargained for... Hartline is now being investigated by the FAA.
Update: Initial reports that the 'drones' flew at the helicopter may not be entirely accurate. Click here to read our followup coverage.
Earlier this week, two drones narrowly avoided a collision with a New York Police Department’s helicopter just over the George Washington Bridge. It took aversion maneuvers by the quick-thinking helicopter pilot to ensure no collision took place. But just because there wasn’t any critical harm done doesn’t mean the individuals behind the reckless drones are getting off free.
Recent reports claim that, in an effort to increase censorship, China has blocked Yahoo! photo sharing site Flickr alongside a number of other social media services. According to Greatfire.org, a group dedicated to keeping the Internet open for all, the site has been down since July 1st.
"This is a Satire Website. Fictional Stories Just for laughs." That's the line you'll find if you scroll to the bottom of the ODGossip website. But when they posted that the subject of an embarrassing Meme was suing Instagram for $500 million, blogs and publications the world over went ahead and ran with it.
Update on 12/16/21: This video has been removed by its creator.
This hour and fifteen minute-long presentation is one of the most detailed and useful videos on copyright law for photographers that we've run across. Put together by B&H in New York, they asked the The Copyright Zone guys, photographer Jack Reznicki and lawyer Ed Greenberg, to tell viewers and attendees "everything you wanted to know about copyright but were afraid to ask."
Shot back in April, the above video shows “Ex-Cop Law Student" Andrew Wake attempting to record a seemingly routine traffic stop when a Gray County Sherriff’s Deputy eventually shows up by his side.
After handing out his name and date of birth, the Deputy asks a few more questions to which Wake kindly refuses to answer per his rights. Confrontation over, good to go right? Not so much. Things get interesting after the traffic stop is over and Wake starts heading away from the scene.
Three years ago, in late July of 2011, freelance news photographer Philip Datz was arrested by the Suffolk County Police Department in New York for “obstruction of governmental administration” because he was recording the conclusion of a police chase from a safe distance away.
Last we told you about the case, the police were dropping the charges and officers were going to have to go through "media relations training," but the case has gone much further than that in the intervening three years.
If we've said it once, we've said a thousand times: don't post illegal activity to Instagram. Because while the photo sharing service does sometimes seem to be the domain of teenaged girls with a duck face problem and hipsters who would like to share their latte with you, the police also spend time on there.
That's a lesson notorious NYC graffiti artist Peter Podsiadlo, better known as SEMP, learned the hard way this week when his Instagram photos earned him 23 felony counts of vandalism.
The dangers of urban exploration photography are well-known. However, despite this danger, it’s not often we hear of any big names in Urbex photography having major accidents or run-ins with the law. That changed a bit this week when a photographer who goes by the pseudonym The Other Side shared the story of how he was threatened with serious legal consequences for photographing a partially abandoned French factory.