Was it actually a public place, or a private place that allows the public?  Either way, I certainly wouldn't let anyone touch my camera, or card.

I have never been sued, but I have friends who have.  Two photographers and one attorney friends.  They seem to not ever worry about the SUE word.  They just say it's so common in the society that we live in even people in jail does it.


If you have or been close to hearing this awful scary word, how did you handle it.  I'm asking because I took some photos at a public place which were not on the radar list and my camera was looked at and my smart card was removed by security and the guy told me. "You are so lucky, I might sue you but I won't this time." (New York wall Street and taxi cabs from the rear)


So, I guess we just live in a SUE society.  Should I be afraid from now on to go outside and take pictures at a public place?   Thanks.

If you were in a public place and not a private area, you should find this person and report him to the authorities.  It isn't against the law to take photos in a public area in the USA.  They have no right to remove your smart card.  Read this http://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf

I've been sued three times! Fun. Perhaps people are still touchy about folks shooting in the financial district. But more likely you were harassed there because you're black. I'm glad they just threatened to sue you and didn't do anything worse.

None of my lawsuits had anything to do with photography or illustration. Two had to do with my mom's estate, and the third is a lame attempt to intimidate me. Still, when someone sues you, no matter how ridiculous their suit, you're forced to hire a lawyer to represent you. Sometimes (like the third suit) the whole idea is to force you to spend money on an attorney. My attorney is so nice and this latest lawsuit is so dumb he offered to represent me pro bono. You'd better believe I'll use his services from now on.

I've sued people as well. Lawsuits are something I never thought I'd ever be involved in.

So far I've always won. Knock wood.

this guy was, luckily he won

http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/being-sued-by-model-for-half-a-million-dollars-in-federal-court-please-read!/

" removed by security and the guy told me.  "You are so lucky, I might sue you but I won't this time." (New York wall Street and taxi cabs from the rear)"

The security guard was talking rubbish they can not "sue" you likewise a cop can not sue you.

If you commit aggravated or criminal trespass then you can be run through the criminal system

Taking photos in a public place is not a criminal activity.  If you are on private property (in the USA) then rent-a-mall-cop can give you a ticking off but they can't sue you.

He obviously weighed his balls that morning and found them sadly lacking so had to take it out on you.

I've been sued three times! Fun. Perhaps people are still touchy about folks shooting in the financial district. But more likely you were harassed there because you're black. I'm glad they just threatened to sue you and didn't do anything worse.

You don't have to be black to be harassed I was in NJ sheltering in the bottom level of a multistorey on the way back to the hotel with the tripod just to have renta-cop turn up in his bright yellow truck demanding to know who I worked for and who I was taking photos for blah blah BUDDY ! (like HEY BUDDY! ....)

Lucky I have a nice accent and explained I worked for no one and it was a hobby and I was sheltering after trying to get shots of the lightning.

I packed up and left in the rain and the guy starts crawling up behind me, winds down his window and gives me the third degree.  I had a sick creepy moment I might end up with a gun in my face or even have the real police brought in on it.

 

Quote from: Shelma1 on March 22, 2017, 05:51

I've been sued three times! Fun. Perhaps people are still touchy about folks shooting in the financial district. But more likely you were harassed there because you're black. I'm glad they just threatened to sue you and didn't do anything worse.

You don't have to be black to be harassed I was in NJ sheltering in the bottom level of a multistorey on the way back to the hotel with the tripod just to have renta-cop turn up in his bright yellow truck demanding to know who I worked for and who I was taking photos for blah blah BUDDY ! (like HEY BUDDY! ....)

Lucky I have a nice accent and explained I worked for no one and it was a hobby and I was sheltering after trying to get shots of the lightning.

I packed up and left in the rain and the guy starts crawling up behind me, winds down his window and gives me the third degree.  I had a sick creepy moment I might end up with a gun in my face or even have the real police brought in on it.

 

Ha! Tell me about it. You know how many times I've been pulled over for Driving While Blonde? And try walking down the street in Manhattan as a female without being harassed. But nothing I've experienced even comes close to the way black people are treated in the USA.

if anyone ever asks to see your camera or recordings, tell them no, unless they are a police officer. no one has the right to look at your material no matter if you are on their property or not. if anything, take a photo of anyone that bothers you, they are scared of having their photo taken more so than anything.

courts only grant rights to law enforcement (police). private security guards do not have rights granted by courts.

do not film any place that the US government or local government has posted that you cannot film. there are special photography laws for certain locations.

if a private security official harasses you, tell them to call the police, or call the police yourself.

Well don't ever take a photo of a (large) bridge! I was taking one and "they" got my plate number on my car and then called my house and "followed up" with me asking what I was doing. I was terrified!

I'm probably on some list now...

Well don't ever take a photo of a (large) bridge! I was taking one and "they" got my plate number on my car and then called my house and "followed up" with me asking what I was doing. I was terrified!

I'm probably on some list now...

Here in Cameraphobic Canada it happens all the time, if "they" is the police and they called you then chances are a member of the public saw a suspicious person armed with a camera and called 911, you probably left the scene by the time police got there so they contacted you based on your plate information and yes you are now in the police database and the suspicious person call is also tagged to your name and will come up on the police computer.

It's not necessarily a bad thing provided the officers entered the correct information in the narrative, just a couple of lines stating you are a stock photographer or freelance photographer and that can actually help you down the road the next time someone calls in your plate to 911 as suspicious and taking pictures as then responding officers will see the notes and probably relax a bit.

It's gotten so bad here that I don't enjoy setting up my tripod and camera anymore, not too much hassles from private security as long as you are on public property, the odd one might not want you filming their office tower but the biggest problem is the public calling the cops every time they see a person with a camera taking pictures.

I wish I could do more of my photography with a small point and shoot, something that looks more tourist-like.

The ones that don't call the cops still quite often stop and ask me, what are you filming?, do you have permission? I am filming whatever is in front of the camera and no I don't need permission to film ice melting on a frozen lake, got asked by 8 people that one afternoon.....it's just gotten stupid.

I got stopped and had my details taken when shooting Schiphol in Amsterdam like 5 years ago.

It's strange because I was on a public road. They were "nice" enough just tell me to leave.

I love shooting airports/airplanes but it's all got a bit silly especially in the past 3 years. I'm dying to get some editorial shots of people going through immigration in the UK...

I have not been sued in photography, but I have sad experiences with many court cases from my previous job as a business manager...

I can't even imagine the stress!
You have my deepest sympathy, what a hateful person.

I have not been sued in photography, but I have sad experiences with many court cases from my previous job as a business manager. In fact one court case is still open and might run another ten years, even though i already won the main case and nothing serious will happen to me.

WOW! And I thought my six-year court case (carried on after my father started the process but passed away) was bad! You'd think with all his money this guy would just move to a tropical island and relax.

The only people who truly win in many cases are the attorneys.

I do a lot of my own research and can search all patent databases, also international ones on my own and then dig out court verdicts relevant to my case. But you are lost in court without a pro. My opponent is paying one of the most expensive patent lawyers in all of Germany, a professor who sits in European boards that write our patent law. It is not a question of who is smarter, but simply who has more experience and knows all the little tricks.

And all that for a so called "trivial patent".

With my company we countersued to break the patent, because there are enough older patents and we did win in many points. unfortunately the courts left him one littel detail and we would have to go to a higher court to get rid of that.

But because the patent itself, even limited to one single detail, was still valid and he immediately forbid us to use it, I had to close down a small business with 6 jobs. The patent was nearly 20 years old and would have ended anyway 4 months later.

My suppliers got worried that we might be liable to crazy damages and we had to close. They wanted me to restart the business after the patent ran out, but that would have put me under suspicion for fraud.

Luckily that was my best ever month on istock with over 7000 dollars. I then decided to disentangle myself from the rest of my fathers business and the people there kept their jobs, that business is still around now.

Thanks to istock I was  able to survive.

He then immediately sued me personally...because as a managing director your are fully personally liable in the case of patent or license law...even if you have a limited liability business. A neat little detail of German law...

4 years later I won the case by 97%, I had to pay a little money, but the courts imposed 100% of all legal costs on him, including my 3% share. They were furious he had insisted the business has to close. Especially because he wasn�t using the patent himself and didn�t have an active business and wasn�t licensing his "invention" elsewhere. The whole thing wasn�t his idea to begin with...but that is a different story.

He even insinuated my photography business was a fraud, i was still secretly selling the other product etc...but I could easily disprove that, but was forced to disclose my istock income to the courts.

Then he argued, I closed the business to get rid of my other one, that it was failing...again i had to prove it wasn�t, we had enough orders.

But by then the judges had understood what kind of game he was playing, and that they were being used in a personal vendetta between two former friends.

So in the end, i got most of my money back, but I did lose quite a bit of money from closing the business. I mean under normal circumstances it could have been sold, not for a large sum, but at least something.

The worst part is the waste of my time and energy, the stress for the whole team.

At the moment it is fairly quiet, every three months I get documents from the case running parallel and have to review it for mistakes, but as much as he keeps dreaming of suing me again, i don�t see how.

Unfortunately I cannot really close the chapter and forget about it, i have to keep following it, because these lawyers are not like mine and they keep making the most stupid mistakes.

I got a huge dose of life experience...yes...and it did make me seruosly consider moving into stock and the arts fulltime...but this is an experience you don�t really need.



Court cases are a very common tool in business warfare. It is used professionally by many companies, either to squeeze out smaller competitors or force them to sell.

Judges do have leeway in how they interpret things, they could have fined me much higher if they wanted to. But because I could prove I had always sought professional counsel and everything i ever claimed was true, they cut my liability to three years instead of 10 and also reduced the overall sum and got me all my legal costs back.

They are still stuck with him, the current judge is the wife of one of the patent lawyers i worked with over the years. But they are used to these people that love to live their life in court.


I really do appreciate my life in stock and I am grateful that all the agencies I work with always pay me on time. I know how hard it is to run a business.
Whatever dramas we have here, it is overall a very friendly industry filled with intelligent and kind hearted people.



Thank you for listening to my story

Document everything, keep all your papers or at least screenshots you can print.

The more material you have, the easier it will be for your lawyer to help you.

Legal logic is a world of it�s own, it took me a long time to understand how they think.

PS: thank you old istock and team. You guys really saved me when i needed it.

PS2: my case was apparently discussed at an international patent meeting and is helping to change laws in Germany on how to deal with patent trolls and trivial patents.

We apparently made history, nobody had ruled in such detail how to evaluate the value of a trivial patent on a tiny detail of a large machine.

Or maybe my patent lawyer just told me that to cheer me up.....but it is true that I couldn�t find anything similar in German, English or French international data bases.

PS3: Actually we couldn�t break the patent completly because the letter "s" was missing in a patent from 1890. They used the same solution, but only had a side view in the drawing of what they did, not one from the front. And because the drawing only showed one side, the accessory was described in singular not plural. But the machine has two sides and needs two add ons, otherwise it doesn�t work as described. Nevertheless, the professor argued that adding a piece to every side, was his clients "invention" and the judges allowed him to keep that detail and urged him to accept a sensible solution with a small fee.

But that is why he had to close us down. he realized there was a risk the higher court might not uphold that and without the patent his fun would be over.

So 90 years after the first description, 6 people lost their job, because it was a side view drawing and one letter "s" was missing....

Never underestimate the letter s!