It seems like every week there's a new story of some photographer being hassled by law enforcement. Photojournalist Stretch Ledford and Carlos Miller of Photography is Not a Crime recently visited the the Miami-Dade Metrorail to ride through a few stations and see if anyone would stop them from doing non-commercial photography. They didn't even make it to the first station.
Over the weekend 16-year-old freelance photographer Jules Mattsson was photographing police cadets in an Armed Forces Day parade in London when he was approached by police and told that he needed parental permission to photograph the cadets.
The above video was recorded by Shawn Nee for Discarted, a blog that fights for photographers' rights to shoot in public locations. It shows Nee getting into a verbal exchange with a police officer over whether or not he can legally photograph the officer.
Earlier this month, the Daily Mail published some photos taken at a Dalston polling station during the British General Election by Emily James of Just Do It.
It looks like Imagelogr, a new search engine for images, has gotten off on the wrong foot. Only weeks old, the service has sparked quite a response from photographers after it became clear that the service was offering copyrighted photographs for download without any links or attribution.
Earlier this month we reported on 48 Hour Magazine, a new project that aims to put together each magazine in only 48 hours from start to finish. The team of editors include Heather Champ and Derek Powazek, the founding editors of JPG Magazine.
Recent surveys found that many image users in the United States and UK are ignorant when it comes to knowing when it's okay to use an image, and how images may be used. 22% of those surveyed admitted that they used photographs found on photo sharing websites for commercial purposes. In response to these findings, Getty has launched stockphotorights, a website that answers many of the common questions people have about image use and copyright. They also have a blog documenting cases of image …
New York City graffiti artist Poster Boy, Henry Matyjewicz, is famed for his rearrangement of subway advertisements into bizarre satirical collages. But as of late, the 28-year-old has been mired in legal troubles, ending in an 11 month sentence for missing a hearing.
Photojournalist Daniel Morel shot an iconic image of a shocked woman looking out from the rubble moments after last January's earthquake in Port au Prince, Haiti. Within an hour, Morel jumped on Twitter to share 13 high resolution images he had uploaded on Twitpic. By the next day, the photo of the woman was picked up by Agence France Presse (AFP) and Getty Images, was run on the cover of several publications and websites.
The New York Civil Liberties Union has teamed up with amateur photographer Antonio Musumeci in a lawsuit that challenges a federal ban on photography. Musumeci, a software programmer, filmed the arrest of a protester outside of the Manhattan Federal Court last year, and then was himself arrested.
It happens all the time, but does that make it acceptable? According to a court decision this week, what Current TV's vice president Michael Streefland calls "standard practice in digital media" is legal after all.
A divorced Long Island couple decided to share custody of their kids, but they ran into a hitch over who got the family albums.
Tom Petters, a former owner of Polaroid was sentenced yesterday to 50 years in prison for heading up a $3.65 billion Ponzi scheme. One of Petters' lawyers, Paul Engh, told reporters that his client is likely to appeal the sentence.
The Digital Economy Bill has passed in the UK with a vote of 189 to 47. In spite its initial controversy, many photographers are breathing a sigh of relief.
Google Books, an ambitious project to make millions of physical books searchable online, found itself in yet another legal battle today after photographers followed in the footsteps of authors by launching their own class action lawsuit for copyright infringement.
Former Vice President Al Gore's company, Current TV is in a legal tussle with San Francisco photographer Ken Light over the rights to a photo Light took of a prison inmate. Current TV, which was recently in national headlines when two of its journalists were detained in North Korea, allegedly used Light's image of a death row inmate without his permission. Light says the company posted his image on the Current TV site for several weeks without responding to the photographer's requests for …
We reported last month that the New York auction house, Sotheby's will be facilitating the sale of more than 1,200 photos from the Polaroid company's collection this June. The photos include images captured by legendary photographers and artists such as Ansel Adams and Andy Warhol. Sotheby's estimates that the collection will raise some $7.5 million to $11.5 million, which will go towards paying for Polaroid's Minnesota bankruptcy court.
Fifty years ago, Cuban photographer Alberto Díaz "Korda" Gutiérrez took a picture of Ernesto "Che" Guevara at a funeral with a 90mm lens on a Leica camera.
Lord Carlile, the official reviewer of terrorism legislation in the UK, has begun calling for the abolition of Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The controversial stop and search law that allows police to search individuals without having reasonable suspicion has become the bane of many street photographers, who are often ordered to stop shooting and are detained when uncooperative.
Last December an amateur photographer named Bob Patefield was in Accrington town center shooting photographs of the Christmas celebration when he and his friend were stopped by police for suspicious behavior. He and his friend refused to provide the police with personal details (since they were not obliged to), and were stopped a total of three times before Patefield was finally arrested. His friend complied, provided his personal information, and was released on the spot.
ImageStamper is an online tool that acts as your witness when it comes to image rights.
In February 2008, Seattle-based photographer Mike Hipple received a letter from the lawyers of sculptor Jack Mackie that one of his stock photographs infringed upon Mackie's copyright. Shown above, the photograph includes a portion of Mackie's "Dance Steps on Broadway", a public art piece created in 1979 with public funds.
A judge announced this past Tuesday that artist Shepard Fairey is under criminal investigation for the improper use of Obama's photograph in his iconic "Hope" poster. Fairey has spent months locked in a legal battle with the AP and photographer Mannie Garcia, who captured the original photograph. The AP demanded credit and compensation for the photograph, while Fairey believes his poster fits the definition of fair use.
