The Twists and Turns of Copyright Violations

This is just strange … a photojournalist in Haiti posted photos shot moments after the earthquake earlier this year and posted them online, linking to them via Twitter. Agence-France Presse picked up the photos and distributed them … without getting his permission.

He complained, sent cease and desist orders and sent them a bill. Now, AFP is suing the photojournalist for, ahem, “antagonistic assertion of [his] rights.”

No, I do not know what that means. But it does allow me to plug this recent addition to the National Press Photographers Association’s Convergence 2010 conference (of which I’m the chair): the American Society of Media Photographers will be doing their copyright presentation as part of the NPPA conference in Charleston, South Carolina, from July 8 through July 10.