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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Mr Liddy...thank you
Nick Morris, Photographer
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San Diego | CA | USA | Posted: 9:26 PM on 10.22.10 |
| ->> I'd like to publicly thank Chuck Liddy for some very helpful advise he gave me about a year ago when I had SEMPRA Energy and the California State Attorney General come down on me like a ton of bricks. With the threat of jail time by the AG and a billion dollar corporations legal team coming at me it became a little uncomfortable to say the least. In 2007 I covered the Witchcreek fires in San Diego and the AG and SEMPRA decided that they wanted a series of photos I had taken. I offered them a very fair licensing deal and was immediately threatened with jail time and a fat lawsuit by SEMPRA if I didn't just turn them over. I'm a freelance PJ with little to no resources and only the Journalist Shield Law to hide behind. The paper I was published by wouldn't lift a finger. I reached out to a few fellow PJ's Chuck being one of them and received some very sound advise. I'm happy to say that after a bit of a battle and the help of a local ACLU chapter I'm pretty much in the clear and I didn't have to give up my photos or go to jail. Chuck, I owe you big time my friend and the first time I'm anywhere near your neck of the woods the beer and nachos are on me. |
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Ian L. Sitren, Photographer
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Palm Springs | CA | USA | Posted: 9:33 PM on 10.22.10 |
| ->> Good for you Nick! And Chuck Liddy! |
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Alexander Pylyshyn, Photographer, Student/Intern
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Newmarket | ON | Canada | Posted: 9:38 PM on 10.22.10 |
->> Sorry...I don't mean to hijack this thread (Kudos to Chuck for extending sound advice and helping Nick out)
But what the heck was the prosecution's rationale for filing suit? I am aware that corporations and lawyers in general are good at bending words and turning ridiculous cases into what sounds like a reasonable cause to sue...maybe it's beyond my meager mind but I can't fathom what someone could conjure up in regards to what you did wrong here. Unless the blunt complaint of "he won't give us the photos, we demand justice" was actually their argument.
I've been known to be a complete idiot so I am probably missing something here. Ridiculous that PJs are still being threatened for doing their job. |
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Nick Morris, Photographer
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San Diego | CA | USA | Posted: 11:06 PM on 10.22.10 |
| ->> Without getting myself into deeper waters and possibly waking the giant if you will, the photos I took were subpoenaed as evidence in the liability case the state filed against SEMPRA to reimburse it for the cost of fighting the fires. Because the photos in question were never published they fell quite nicely into CA Journalist Shield Law which was one of the pieces of advise I received from Chuck. One of the first things I learned and would like to share is that anytime you deal with a corporation with pockets this deep, a very common practice they deploy is to pay retainers to all the local law firms so in the event someone tries to hire anyone decent enough to sue them the firms immediate reply is "We're under retainer by said client and this presents a conflict of interest" This forces you to seek legal help from another county and even state. THAT gets damn expensive. Alexander, PJ's have and always will be threatened. It's the hardest part of the job to get used to. |
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George Bridges, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Washington | DC | USA | Posted: 10:19 AM on 10.23.10 |
| ->> Score one for the grumpy old man. |
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