It's rare that we get to report happy news from the intellectual property side of the photography business, so let's take heart from a win-win settlement achieved between a wronged photographer and viral media site BuzzFeed.
Sarah Palin is being sued after her political action committee (or PAC) posted an iconic September 11th photo on her Facebook page and website without asking permission from the copyright owner.
We recently spoke to PhotoAttorney.com’s Carolyn Wright and former ASMP President Richard Kelly about the importance of registering your copyright regularly. In that vein, A Photo Editor recently updated us on the Richard Reinsdorf v. Skechers case, which illustrates the complexity of copyright violation cases and re-emphasizes the necessity of copyright registration.
The convenience of always having a camera with you also comes with some serious liabilities, especially if someone's well-being depends on anonymity. This is probably why more and more judges are banning cameraphones from their courtrooms.
The dust has barely settled from the Instagram policy fumble, but it looks like parent company Facebook might be in for a similar upheaval.
A Malaysian researcher may have dealt a major blow to image thieves by using the mathematical formulas behind Sudoku puzzles to create hidden, super-strong watermarks.
There's a legal battle currently raging in the state of Texas that concerns photography. More specifically, it concerns improper photography -- defined as photographing another person without their consent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of another person -- which was illegal until the state's Fourth Court of Appeals declared the statute prohibiting it unconstitutional.
Earlier this month, the Syfy channel -- which is owned by NBC Universal -- debuted a new show called Heroes of Cosplay. The show pits nine big-time cosplayers against one another as they try to make a name for themselves in this world of fantasy costume play.
One year ago, in August of 2012, New York Times photographer Robert Stolarik was arrested for allegedly using his camera flash to interfere with police during an arrest. However, after taking a look at the evidence, it's the police officer who is in hot water and may face up to 7 years in prison after being indicted on three felony counts and five misdemeanors.
Earlier this month, Photoshelter did a live webinar with Carolyn E. Wright, AKA The Photo Attorney. Carolyn is a full-time attorney whose practice is aimed squarely at the legal needs of photographers. During the webinar talked extensively about copyright infringement, and what photographers need to know when they think their copyright has been infringed (you can watch a video recording here).
One of the downsides to living in an uber-connected digital world is the ease with which intellectual property can be stolen. Whichever bogus excuse they choose to use, many people seem less than concerned when it comes to stealing someone's photography and claiming it as their own these days.
Last Thursday, we told you about the newest anti-paparazzi bill to hit the California State Assembly. Focused on expanding the definition of harassment, SB 606 was drafted for the specific purpose of protecting the children of celebrities -- some hollywood actresses have already spoken out in support of the bill.
On your own mental list of "most perilous jobs," chances are Google Street View driver doesn't make it very close to the top. But one of Google's own wound up in a strange situation recently when a group of villagers in Thailand put him under citizen's arrest, believing him to be a spy for a government dam project they oppose.
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.
Today's award for taking copyright seriously goes to Philadelphia photographer/blooger R. Bradley Maule, who's suing the city's district attorney for allegedly misappropriating one of Maule's images as the background for his Twitter page.
So you think you have a good reason or excuse to use a photo you found on the Internet without asking the photographer who took it? Let’s see if it can stand the test.
Dominic Holden is the News Editor for the Seattle area newspaper The Stranger, and he was recently threatened with arrest and workplace harassment by some local police officers for standing on a public sidewalk and taking their picture.
An unnamed photographer and the editor of a French celebrity gossip magazine have been charged with privacy violations for publishing topless photos of new royal mom Kate Middleton (now Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge), and more charges are likely to follow.
A French court has banned distribution of a photo book and fined the photographer, essentially for including a portrait the subject didn't like.
Finnish lawmakers could soon rewrite the nation's copyright laws, as a citizen-originated initiative aimed at easing piracy penalties and protecting consumer rights makes it way to Parliament.
On Christmas Day of last year, we shared the news that Instagram was still dealing with fallout after their infamous Terms of Service mishap. Even after scaling back the Policy to pacify angry users, the company still faced with a class action lawsuit.
Detroit police are investigating an incident last week in which a photographer for the Detroit Free Press was arrested and had her camera seized while covering a police action.
A federal court judge has ordered celebrity/fashion photographer Terry Richardson to surrender 142,000 shots of Lady Gaga as evidence in a lawsuit against the pop star.
Photographer George Steinmetz has made a name for himself by taking spectacular aerial images from his paraglider. But a recent flight over Finney County, Kansas landed him not in the pages of National Geographic, but in jail.
How not to run a wedding photography business: Take deposits from clients, don't show up for the weddings and skip town before the law catches on. That was the strategy employed by Ramon Rodriguez, a Louisville, Kentucky photographer who remains in jail after bilking prospective clients out of $27,000.
The photographer who captured images of the Chicago Bears doing the "Super Bowl Shuffle" is suing the Chicago Tribune and Fox Sports for allegedly misappropriating the images.
Most years around this time we take a road trip to visit my family in New Jersey. There are always a couple of camera bags in the back seat, as there will be tomorrow night when we saddle up and head south once again. And most years around this time I think back to something that happened on another hot summer night less than two months before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
A Miami man has been arrested after allegedly posing as a photographer on Craigslist to lure two women to a remote spot and then assault them.
The Olympus financial scandal -- you know, the one that was discovered all the way back in October of 2011 -- has been trying to reach a conclusion for some time now. But now that the Japanese justice system has reached a decision, many won't be happy with the end result. Namely: all of the major players in the $1.7 billion scandal have managed to avoid jail time entirely, at least for now.
BuzzFeed isn't the only blog that's routinely accused of using photographs without permission. American celebrity blogger Perez Hilton (above right) is being whacked with a $2.1 million lawsuit by New York Times photographer Robert Caplin (above left) for publishing 14 photographs without permission.
A photographer is suing the popular viral content aggregation website BuzzFeed for a whopping $3.9 million after he discovered that BuzzFeed had used one of his Flickr photos without permission in a comedy "roundup" article.
Turns out that driver's license photos are useful for more than acute embarrassment. States, realizing they have a de-facto visual database of most of their residents, are increasingly plugging those photos into facial-recognition software and Facebook to solve crimes -- and worrying privacy advocates in the process.
A handful of groups representing professional photographers are calling for a boycott of a Conde Nast photo contest whose terms they consider exploitative.
If you're planning on stealing somebody's credit card (and we don't suggest you do), then at least have the presence of mind not to hop in a photo booth with the card and several of your friends to take potentially incriminating photos. That's what police suspect a group of teens did after stealing a woman's credit card in Crofton, MD.
Prosecutors in Reno, Nevada, have dropped charges against a newspaper photographer arrested and injured while trying to cover a house fire last year.
You've had a rough day, you're bone tired and ready for bed. What would feel better than cuddling up with an image of some anonymous dude in a Superman outfit? …
We're getting more and more accustomed to authorities telling us if and how we can photograph something, so the camera ban enacted for the recent Reno Rodeo isn't all that surprising.
In a surprising, yet not so surprising bit of news, pop teen sensation Justin Bieber and one of his bodyguards have been sued by a photographer following a brouhaha that took place outside "The Hit Factory" in Miami last week.
In an all-too-clear display of how journalistic carelessness can lead to big legal troubles, the two "Bag Men" who were shown on the front page of the New York Post following the Boston Marathon bombings have filed a defamation lawsuit against the paper on Wednesday of this week.
We can think of a lot of worse things to call a photograph than "gothic," but that label was enough to really tick off the owner of a Kansas photo studio.
This video recently uploaded to the web is making its rounds showing a mall security officer fiercely shouting at a group of curious citizens for taking pictures and videos. (Warning: It contains some violence and strong language) …
Canipre -- short for Canadian Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement -- is a Canadian anti-piracy company that has joined hand-in-hand with film studios and record companies to track down those who steal and share stolen content over the internet. On the surface there's nothing wrong with this, what is wrong is when an intellectual property advocate is found using photos without permission, which is exactly what happened to Canipre a couple of days ago.
Photographer Arne Svenson lives on the second floor of an apartment building in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York City. For his project "The Neighbors," he pointed his camera at a luxury apartment building across the street and secretly photographed its inhabitants through open windows.
Samsung found itself in an embarrassing copyright infringement controversy earlier today after the company published a street photographer's work without permission as an advertisement on its Facebook page. It wasn't just the unauthorized use of the image that was embarrassing; here's the kicker: the photograph was actually shot using a Nikon camera.
The wildly successful Kickstarter campaign Blackprints is currently at the center of a heated controversy over stolen images that has already involved one copyright dispute. It seems that the campaign's creator, Sabrina Chun, might have taken to acquiring photos of cars off of the Internet, changing them to black and white minimalist versions, and selling them as part of this campaign. (See Update)
A "copyright land-grab" that will "permit the commercial exploitation of [orphan] images" and lead to a "firestorm" of litigation. Those are the terms being used by some to describe a UK bill that just received Royal Assent last week, despite drawing fire from writers and photographers the world over.
Korean-American Kenneth Bae made headlines back in November when he was arrested while leading a tour group though the Rason Special Economic Zone in North Korea. The reasons behind the arrest have never been properly confirmed, but it seems that his detainment had something to do with photos he was taking while he was spending time in the country.
While browsing the internet recently, SportsShooter user Greg Bartram stumbled on an eBay store that was selling prints of several of his images. Upon taking a closer look, he realized that it wasn't just him, ukgobigblueuk is selling 8x10s of just about any sports, celebrity or political photo he can get his hands on -- and according to his description, he can "more than likely" get his hands on any photo you want.
