Archive for the 'Legal' Category

Interior Photographer Wins $12M Verdict!

June 25th, 2008

Via: Thomas Bliss’s IAAP site and Carolyn Wright’s Photo Attorney blog:
“Liz Ordonez-Dawes, an accomplished architectural and interior design photographer, recently was awarded more than $12 million dollars for copyright infringement of seven photographs. In brief, the court found that the defendants distributed Ms. Ordonez-Dawes’ photos of high-end houses to various third parties for advertisements to [...]

Petition Against Orphan Works Legislation

June 19th, 2008

About a month ago I did a post highlighting some background on the The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 legislation pending in the house and senate. Thanks to Carolyn Wright over at photoattorney.com I just noticed that there is a petition to sign registering sentiment against this legislation.

Proposed Orphan Works Bills Will Radically Change Copyright

May 30th, 2008

If you haven’t noticed Congress is on it’s way to passing some legislation that will radically change the way copyright law works. Photographers owning copyrighted material will be effected by these laws if passed. I suggest taking the time to understand what is about to happen with copyright and if you don’t like it, express [...]

Is Your Photo Licensing Consistent With Your Local MLS?

January 29th, 2008

After participating in a number of discussions about photo licensing with real estate photographers I’ve realized that there is a disconnect going on between real estate photographers licensing and MLS photo usage rules.

Strategies to Stay Within the Law When Editing Digital Photos

August 13th, 2007

I hesitate to do another post on photo editing ethics again since we have pretty much beat this subject to death in the recent past. However, the Real Estate Trends + Technology Magazine of the California Association of Realtors have a pretty definitive article by John Edwards, titled Have you crossed the line?
I think this [...]

Who Owns The Photos? Not All Realtors Understand Photo Licensing

July 21st, 2007

Do your clients think they own the photos that you shoot for them? Mike over at www.martinvirtualtours.com told me about an misunderstanding that he recently had in which he shot a tour for a new construction agent where he included some neighborhood photos in the tour. Later, he provided the same neighborhood photos to a [...]

REALTORS® Required to “Present a True Picture” to The Public

April 17th, 2007

Jason Soles commenting in the last post poses a great question: “Does anybody (photographers or agents) have/use some sort of written code-of-ethics for these situations?” Since as a RE photographer you are working for the REALTORS® I think  the NAR ethics should set the ethical guideline.
As a  REALTORS® I knew that the National [...]

Advertising is Held to be Boasting and Bragging

April 16th, 2007

Drew from NJ just pointed out an interesting recent article on yahoo.com/real estate by Vanessa Richardson of Bankrate.com titled- Altered Photos: Taking the Real From Real Estate.
The article bottom line is that according to John O’Brien Chairman of the Illinois state Real Estate Lawyer Association:
“Advertising is held to be boasting and bragging, not [...]

Photographers Legal Guide - By Carolyn Wright

January 7th, 2007

Back in May of last year I pointed out that there’s a blog ( photoattorney.com ) that covers legal issues associated with photography. A few weeks ago Carolyn started shipping a book on the subject called “Photographers Legal Guide”. I purchased the e-book ($9.95) version and allthough I haven’t had time to read it from [...]