TVX - I won the case!

So, most of you that follow my social media sites or know me from twitter will already know about this. However, I just wanted to share the wonderful news with many out there that I FINALLY (after over three years of waiting) won the case with TVX.

To those of you that remember. TVX were a company that took an image of me and placed it on a pornographic DVD. The picture was nothing to do with the theme or porn whatsoever, and the fact I was fourteen in the image annoyed me even more so. I found the image at the age of seventeen when someone informed me on DeviantART it had been stolen. I had NO idea that my work was being used in this way. Obviously, as photographers using the internet, we often get people stealing our work – but not to something of this extent. I was tired of people walking over me in this situation, so I decided to take legal action. It wasn't long until I got abusive and mean messages back from the owner of the company TVX (who distribute the covers) and I realized this wasn't something I could walk away from – this wasn't going to be an easy situation to solve.
Eventually, the case was taken on by a wonderful lawyer in Florida – Mr Richard Harrison of Allen Dell PA. He has stood by me ever since first finding the image and put a lot of hard work and his spare time towards helping me with this case. I was enlightened to hear a few months back that the case was finally going to court and we'd get an answer. So, in July (whilst on my NYC trip for two months) I went to Tampa, Florida to try and put an end to this story. Considering how far I'd moved on with my career and how long it had taken the court case to go through, I can honestly say I was so glad to stand up for myself in court and prove to everyone I wasn't just 'a girl that had her picture stolen for a pornographic DVD' but I'd established a successful career in photography and I hoped that fighting this case would give inspiration to many other young (and older!) photographer's out there that copyright IS an issue. You can't just go and steal an image that doesn't belong to you and use it for commercial gain – if you're going to steal images online then people WILL find out and they CAN sue you!

So here I am at the (almost) end of the road, I have won the case against TVX and I hope to be a voice to many photographers out there and to tell you to stand up for yourselves over copyright issues. Remember to be wise about where you upload your images, the size you upload them and be smart about the steps you can take towards finding legal help when you've found your image being used inappropriately.

I just wanted to say a big thank you to all the people that have supported me throughout this, through blog posts and emails offering advice and help initially until now.
If you're interested in seeing the press release then please go to the plagiarism today site, here: www.plagiarismtoday.com/2010/0…


LJ. xox

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