In 2016 a massive flash flood raced down the main street of Ellicott City, Maryland. It was called a “thousand-year flood” given the unique characteristics that set it in motion. On May 27, 2018 the flow that supposed to only occur once every 1,000 years struck again.
This time photographer Max Robinson was trapped in an apartment building near Main St. and Maryland Ave and started documenting what was transpiring on his Twitter feed.
Robinson is social media coordinator for
Howard County Recreation and Parks, a contributing journalist to the
Baltimore Beat, and no stranger to social media norms and intellectual property rights.
Fox News Network contacted Robinson and requested permission to use his footage
for credit only on “Fox News Network, LLC & Fox News Edge affiliates use on all platforms.” He responded with a quick, terse
NO.
But, Fox News went ahead and used his content anyway. See the story and view the footage on
Photoshelter.com.
Robinson has a strong legal case for copyright infringement, but the case is likely that it will drag out in the courts for a long time with the bulk of the settlement going to the lawyers.
In the meantime Max Robinson has set up a
GoFundMe account to assist his mother and sister recover from flood damage.
Other
legal cases photographers should know about.
UPDATE
Take a look at the
PetaPixel update.
I turns out that Robinson did give Associated Press permission to use his footage. As a subscriber to AP, Fox News had the right to use the footage. Fox News also credited APTN as the source for the footage in all their news reports for the rest of the weekend.
Consequently, it looks like Robinson has no claim or chance of recovery.
If you're trying to control your rights know what you are giving away.