A Picture's Worth a Thousand Lawsuits

It's been a couple months since I've covered a good blogger controversy, but the story that caught my eye today combines my passion of blogging with my love of photography.

What happened is that a popular photo blogger snapped a few photos while visiting the World Erotic Art Museum and posted them to Flickr. The museum was none too pleased by that, and subsequently threatened the blogger with a $2 million lawsuit.

At first glance, this seems like an extreme overreaction by the museum, but let's dive further into this case courtroom-style.

The prosecution (museum):

• The museum's curator stated that although photographers are allowed to take pictures, there's an unwritten agreement that the photos won't be posted online. The goal there is to protect children from seeing anything explicit.

• The blogger in question has had a history of causing trouble with museums and has a reputation for being confrontational, so a firm statement had to be made.

• The blogger was never given permission to take photographs.

• The museum is not necessarily looking to profit here, but is demanding a public apology from the blogger and compensation for legal fees.

The defense (blogger):

• The blogger states that the museum's complaint is that he violated their policy prohibiting professional photography, and he has not tried to profit from the photos. Furthermore, Flickr is defined as a non-commercial website. Therefore, the blogger didn't violate the policy.

• Unwritten/unspoken agreements like the one the museum mentions have little, if any, ground for a lawsuit. 

• While the museum claims the blogger wasn't given permission to take photos, the blogger claims he was in fact approached by a museum employee and given the go-ahead after being questioned briefly.

This is obviously an extremely messy situation. Both sides are claiming the other one is lying, and because nothing was signed or documented we probably won't know the whole story.

Personally, while I understand the museum is trying to position itself as a protecter of impressionable children, this types of blogger controversies rarely work out well for the party filing the lawsuit. That being said, the museum is most likely doing more harm to themselves than good.