Carlos, you like everyone have a first amendment right to post whatever you want whenever you want. The Post also has a right to use you or to not use you. They have the right to dictate the terms under which they will continue to use you. You had a right to disagree with them and no longer work for them but you also had a right to agree to their terms. That’s not a violation of your free speech rights. The mission of your blog speaks to what our rights are about. The first amendment was written to protect us from the government (in your case the police) not from our employers.

You’re not a jackass. I appreciate your comments.

Comments go into mod limbo if there are two or more links included.

Thanks for the links, but I already have that link of my site on the right hand column.

I’ve tried using that on cops and it really doesn’t work.

and the printable PDF:
http://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf

don’t need press ID, just hand them a laminated copy with the relevant parts highlighted and be on your way.

I have complete ownership of my photos. That is not even part of the question.

The issue was the content, not the photos.

Because I didn’t sign a contract, I was under no legal obligation to remove the post.

But they are also under no obligation to hire me for future assignments.

I was not forced to remove the blog post. I chose to remove the blog post.

In doing so, I considered my options:

1) Refuse to remove the post and enjoy that traffic and attention it gets for about three or four days.

But then piss the editor off to the point where I will never get hired again.

or

2) Remove the post, provide an explanation to my readers and show the NY Post that I am willing to cooperate with whatever requirements they have, even though I never signed a contract.

The NY Post pays very well. They have the ninth highest circulation in the country. Continuous work from them will lead to work in even larger publications.

I doubt this situation was even brought to the attention of the NY Post legal team.

What happened was that I emailed the editor the post, thinking he would appreciate it.

He emailed me back in seconds informing me that whatever happens to me while on assignment for the Post is only for publication in the Post.

It was more of an automated response more than anything else. And there was never a mention of the photos.

The fact that I made him aware of the blog post put him in a position where he had to inform me of the company policy, if only to protect his own ass.

In hindsight, I should have never even sent the post to him in the first place.

I have a feeling the legal team was concerned that whatever you took pictures of were going to sue. this sentence made a lot more sense before i obfuscated what i had originally said.

did you even read the comments i had posted under that blog post?

I was wondering if you were being sarcastic, but I wasn’t sure. It is hard sometimes to decipher sarcasm on the internet because sarcasm depends so much on the tone of delivery.

That is why people use the little smileys like Nonee did in this thread.

FerfelaBat,

Usually employees of newspapers are under different rules than contract workers.

For example, if I was on staff for the New York Post, any picture I take would be their property.

But as a freelancer, I maintain ownership of all my photos and only license them for usage.

Sorry you were harrassed again by police. They are twitchy as hell down here with the spring breakers crawling all over the Keys. Aparently, McDonalds is ground zero for badness. That or they’ve become addicted to the yogurt parfaits and don’t want to get too far away from their source. Try one. You can hate me later when you find yourself turning into every McD’s drive through to get a parfait fix.

Where’s the outrage?