Argent, Rahal sue photographer

UPDATE Further analysis of the lawsuit reveals that it doesn’t appear that Rahal and Argent are claiming ownership at all. It looks like they are claiming they are not responsible for third parties infringing the copyright that the photographer has on these photos. If anything it looks as if they agree the photographer does own them, but apparently he has threatened THEM with a lawsuit because of actions by a third party. Looks like this suit is to force the photographer to quit threatening THEM and go after the third party instead.

Plaintiff alleges defendant made two contentions of wrongful on the part of plaintiff. The first is plaintiff used the photos in a way (unspecified) that violated plaintiff's copyright. The second is plaintiff is responsible for a third-party's alleged misuse (unspecified) of the photos. Possibly the two claims by defendants are connected, i.e., by allowing the photos to be possessed by the third party Argent/Rahal violated copyright (never should have given them to the third party) and therefore are in addition responsible for third party's usage in violation of the copyright.

08/16/06 Argent Mortgage and Rahal Letterman Racing have filed a lawsuit against a photographer over Danica Patrick photos he took for the team. The photographer claims he owns the rights to the photos and Argent and Rahal claim they do. Typically the photographer owns the rights and gives the buyer the right to use them, hence the photographer can sell them to others. That is how photographers make a living. It will be interesting to see how this case turns out because to the best of our recollection, a previous case set a precedence for how photographers operate.