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This is a very, very short synopsis version, you'll have to follow the articles for details. Note: photos were posted on TwitPic which links them to your Twitter account.

Daniel Morel (photojournalist and Corbis freelance photographer) was in Port-au-Prince when the earthquake struck.

With the help of a friend and hotel manager... created a Twitter account with the username “PhotoMorel”. It was the photographer’s first foray in the world of 140-character long Tweets. By 5.20pm that day, Morel posted on TwitPic 13 images he had taken that day.

The images were, licensed by Getty Images...

...the images were used by newspapers and networks such as Boston Globe, the New York Times, The Age, Vanity Fair, USA Today, The Guardian, etc. Each time, the credit reads Agence France Presse.

According to AFP, Morel granted any third-party a non-exclusive license to use the images by posting them on Twitter.

Add in this: Agence France Presse filed a complaint in the United States District Court Southern District of New York against Haiti-based photographer Daniel Morel. Agence France Presse claims Morel engaged in an “antagonistic assertion of rights” after the photographer objected to the use by AFP of images he posted online of the Haitian earthquake of 12 January.

http://www.1854.eu/2010/04/agence_france_presses_slap_to.html

This one should be interesting and involved before it's over. Worth watching.

ps the TwitPic account PhotoMorel shows no photos at this time.

Second article with the photo and some other information.

http://www.petapixel.com/2010/04/27/news-wire-allegedly-steals-iconic-haiti-photo-then-sues-photographer/

Sounds a lot more like vexatious litigation to me. If it was me I'd be going after the lawyers filing the application as well as the AFP. Looks very much like a case of a big press agency making some very large mistakes and trying to get around those by suing the victim of those mistakes.

Of course in practice big law firms seem to think that they can get away with filing whatever trash application that they feel like without any regard for the law, the merits of a case or what their ethical responsibilities are.

Its actually ridiculous that corporations are able to sue for commercial defamation in the US - something I'm very glad the Australian parliament has done away with.

I stopped using Twitpic because of that whole mess. MobyPicture is supposedly more friendly with photographers' rights, so I'm trying them out.

Just this part is freaky:

“a worldwide, nonexclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and Twitpic’s (and its successors’ and affiliates’) business.”

It does seem a little crazy. I guess you are supposed to read everything you sign up for. I need some kind of "lawyer app" for the internet.