youth league using my photos to promote photoday

<p>But they used a competitor of mine to take their pix this year.. I could give you a bunch of background but the bottom line is the league switched photographers from me to some one else then <strong>without my permission</strong> scanned last years team pix and used them on thier website to promote photoday for this year. The scans by the way look horrible not my quality work at all. Now usually I would just blow it off but the new photographers are my old employees, they have pulled so much bs I'm feed up. Is their anything I can do to make sure this doesnt happen again or threaten sueing both league and photo company?</p>

<p>Just send them a Cease and Desist warning through a lawyer. This has the impact of letting them know you're dead serious without actually suing anyone.</p>

<p>Where did your photo appear? It isn't clear if the web site is that of the youth league or that of your ex-employees. Who posted the photo? What does your original contract with the youth league say about promotional usage (theirs, not yours) of the images you provided?<br /><br />If they (youth league) have no permission from you to use your image(s) and it's their web site maybe simply asking them to take it down would do the trick? If they refuse, you can submit a request for removal to the hosting company that hosts their web site. Beyond that I'm sure you can take them to court, threaten legal action etc but I'd think long and hard about what that potentially might do to your reputation locally before taking any such action unless absolutely necessary.<br /><br />IANAL, naturally so as far as legal advice my words are worth exactly what you paid for them.</p>

<p>Chris - </p>

<p>Recheck your contract / emails with the league - make sure you did not give them permission to use the photos on their site - If you can't find it - then send them a nicely worded request to remove the photos from their site - since you are no longer the photographer for the league. </p>

<p>At best this is pretty tacky of them - at worst a violation of usage and copyright. </p>

<p>It seems somewhat doubtful that the other photo company would provide them with a low quality scan of one of your images - so I'm guessing that the picture coordinator at the league found a photo and did a quick and dirty scan to get the word out about photo day. </p>

<p>Also - just curious - Are these the same folks you posted about in January? If so - you really need to figure things out with them. </p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

<p>You're in business; right?</p>

<p>I'd be more concerned about why I lost the business to someone else.</p>

 

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<p>The scans by the way look horrible not my quality work at all</p>

 

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<p>You're getting a photo credit?</p>

<p>Getting in touch with youth sports leagues is tough nowadays- you email em they dont response and almost none of the board directors have their phone # on the leagues website. Sooner or later hopefully I can get in touch with one of the leagues cordinators to see why I lost the biz. The same people went after all my accounts and were offering outrageous $$ back to the league, it didnt workout for them in my town which is their town too because everyone knows their s_um_ags. Funny thing is they keep lying to board members saying negative things about my company, so their sales tatic is to badmouth me. yes David it was the same people who I posted about jan 7th. They managed to get an account 20 miles from here where they grow up. I have no idea how to stop them but honestly I dont want to because when they go in to any league or studio and start badmouthing me it makes them look like- NO I WONT SAY it.</p>

Chris -

 

Completely understand about getting in touch with the leagues - it is tough - but that's the business side of this business. I have one league that I'd be trying to get in touch with about doing work for for 3 years...Sent an e-mail or 3 every year to the league coordinator - never got a response - Now someone new is in the job and they called me!

 

 

Bottom line (and this really doesn't help with the topic at hand of them using your photos to promote the other guy's photo day) - is that leagues are run by parents - parents have kids - kids grow up and out of leagues - when that happens parents get un-involved with leagues - so new parents come onto boards - Boards also tend to look at what the person before them did. If enough parents aren't complaining - chances are they will do nothing different. Your e-mail will go into the trash bin or a folder of potential contacts.

 

Dave