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By Spencer Engel
January 17, 2014 9:15 am CST
http://cover32.com/rams/2014/01/17/...g-stlramsphotos-from-selling-his-work-online/
For those of you who are plugged in to the St. Louis Rams Twitter community, you may have noticed over the past few weeks that St. Louis Post Dispatchphotographer Chris Lee (@pdchris) and a local Rams fan and photo editor named Alvin Lawrence (@stlramsphotos) have been engaged in a feud.
Since Lee publicly called Lawrence out for what Lee believes is copyright infringement on his professional photos, Lawrence has made his account private (update: within the past 12 hours, the account was made inactive). However, I was already following him, so I can tell you that he has tweeted exactly 1,760 times and has “edited” no fewer than 50 pictures. According to his bio, Lawrence credits these pictures as such: “I do NOT own these photos just the edits. Sources (STL Post Dispatch, Yahoo, ESPN and USA Today)”
Lee was originally annoyed that Lawrence edited a photo from the Rams-Buccaneers game. (I actually posted a blog about said photo with links to both Lee’s and Lawrence’s version). However, as you can see in the screenshot below (click to make less blurry), things seemed to be OK after Lee and Lawrence emailed back and forth a bit.
However, just a few days later, things got a little hairy between the two.
According to this jimromesko.com article, which you should definitely read, Lee became concerned when @stlramsphotos posted a picture on Instagram in which Robert Quinn was holding up a framed picture that was edited by Lawrence. Lee took notice, and posted the following:
@Stlramsphotos @jashumaka You want to retweet my pix, okay, whatever. But now I hear you’re selling them??? We got problems.
— Chris Lee (@pdchris) December 30, 2013
@Stlramsphotos You got my email address. It’s in every photo caption of every picture you steal from me.
— Chris Lee (@pdchris) December 30, 2013
Lee started interacting with Lawrence’s personal Twitter account too (@Alvinlwrnc), which Lawrence made private when this controversy started, just as he did with @stlramsphotos.
I would post more of the interactions between Lee and Lawrence, but between the time I started writing this article - around 4 p.m. on Thursday, January 16. – and finishing it – around 8 a.m. on Friday, January 17 – @stlramsphotos became inactive. As Lee pointed out yesterday, Lawrence’s Instagram account, stlramsphotos, which had more than 14,000 followers, also became inactive.
@Stlramsphotos @Alvinlwrnc Poof. So that’s what 14000 followers disappearing sounds like.
— Chris Lee (@pdchris) January 16, 2014
The whole situation is pretty unfortunate. I won’t claim to know either guy personally, but I have communicated with Lawrence via direct message in the past, and it’s pretty clear that the guy is a huge Rams fan (which Lee even admitted as you recall) and started out editing these pictures for fun. As for Lee, I’ve admired his work for as long as I can remember. He’s an award-winning photographer, and St. Louis is lucky to have him.
(I DM’d Lawrence last Friday to see if he’d like to talk about this whole situation, but I got no response. He hadn’t tweeted since December 29th from the @stlramsphotos account, which was the date of the Rams’ last game of the season and also around the time Lee started getting serious about alleging copyright infringement.)
About halfway through the Rams season, @stlramsphotos started blowing up. I’m doing this from memory because the account is now inactive, but I know for a fact that many players, including All-Pro punter Johnny Hekker, gave the account a shoutout. And at least five players, including Quinn, retweeted tweets from the account when Lawrence posted pictures of that respective player. Lawrence went from having a couple hundred followers to nearly 1,000 in a matter of a few weeks, many of whom were Rams players or people closely connected to Rams players.
Then the slippery slope of Lawrence selling his “edits” came up, and Lee took issue with it. As he tells jimromensko.com, Lee anonymously emailed Lawrence to see what it would take to buy one of his edits. Here is Lawrence’s response:
Shortly thereafter, @stlramsphotos became defunct. Lawrence may now be facing copyright infringement lawsuits from both the Post Dispatch and USA Today. We’ll keep you updated.
January 17, 2014 9:15 am CST
http://cover32.com/rams/2014/01/17/...g-stlramsphotos-from-selling-his-work-online/
For those of you who are plugged in to the St. Louis Rams Twitter community, you may have noticed over the past few weeks that St. Louis Post Dispatchphotographer Chris Lee (@pdchris) and a local Rams fan and photo editor named Alvin Lawrence (@stlramsphotos) have been engaged in a feud.
Since Lee publicly called Lawrence out for what Lee believes is copyright infringement on his professional photos, Lawrence has made his account private (update: within the past 12 hours, the account was made inactive). However, I was already following him, so I can tell you that he has tweeted exactly 1,760 times and has “edited” no fewer than 50 pictures. According to his bio, Lawrence credits these pictures as such: “I do NOT own these photos just the edits. Sources (STL Post Dispatch, Yahoo, ESPN and USA Today)”
Lee was originally annoyed that Lawrence edited a photo from the Rams-Buccaneers game. (I actually posted a blog about said photo with links to both Lee’s and Lawrence’s version). However, as you can see in the screenshot below (click to make less blurry), things seemed to be OK after Lee and Lawrence emailed back and forth a bit.
However, just a few days later, things got a little hairy between the two.
According to this jimromesko.com article, which you should definitely read, Lee became concerned when @stlramsphotos posted a picture on Instagram in which Robert Quinn was holding up a framed picture that was edited by Lawrence. Lee took notice, and posted the following:
@Stlramsphotos @jashumaka You want to retweet my pix, okay, whatever. But now I hear you’re selling them??? We got problems.
— Chris Lee (@pdchris) December 30, 2013
@Stlramsphotos You got my email address. It’s in every photo caption of every picture you steal from me.
— Chris Lee (@pdchris) December 30, 2013
Lee started interacting with Lawrence’s personal Twitter account too (@Alvinlwrnc), which Lawrence made private when this controversy started, just as he did with @stlramsphotos.
I would post more of the interactions between Lee and Lawrence, but between the time I started writing this article - around 4 p.m. on Thursday, January 16. – and finishing it – around 8 a.m. on Friday, January 17 – @stlramsphotos became inactive. As Lee pointed out yesterday, Lawrence’s Instagram account, stlramsphotos, which had more than 14,000 followers, also became inactive.
@Stlramsphotos @Alvinlwrnc Poof. So that’s what 14000 followers disappearing sounds like.
— Chris Lee (@pdchris) January 16, 2014
The whole situation is pretty unfortunate. I won’t claim to know either guy personally, but I have communicated with Lawrence via direct message in the past, and it’s pretty clear that the guy is a huge Rams fan (which Lee even admitted as you recall) and started out editing these pictures for fun. As for Lee, I’ve admired his work for as long as I can remember. He’s an award-winning photographer, and St. Louis is lucky to have him.
(I DM’d Lawrence last Friday to see if he’d like to talk about this whole situation, but I got no response. He hadn’t tweeted since December 29th from the @stlramsphotos account, which was the date of the Rams’ last game of the season and also around the time Lee started getting serious about alleging copyright infringement.)
About halfway through the Rams season, @stlramsphotos started blowing up. I’m doing this from memory because the account is now inactive, but I know for a fact that many players, including All-Pro punter Johnny Hekker, gave the account a shoutout. And at least five players, including Quinn, retweeted tweets from the account when Lawrence posted pictures of that respective player. Lawrence went from having a couple hundred followers to nearly 1,000 in a matter of a few weeks, many of whom were Rams players or people closely connected to Rams players.
Then the slippery slope of Lawrence selling his “edits” came up, and Lee took issue with it. As he tells jimromensko.com, Lee anonymously emailed Lawrence to see what it would take to buy one of his edits. Here is Lawrence’s response:
“With the Quinn poster, his wife and I worked together to put that photo together. I have the HD file on my computer. Quinn’s wife was the one that went to Walgreens to get it blown up, and framed. I only designed.
As far as rights and pricing, the rights of this photo is owned by, Chris Lee/stl post dispatch. So I do not own the rights to it. I only own the rights to the actual put together and the overall edit. As far as pricing? That’ll be up to you. What were you thinking?
How it works, is I email you the file, You go to your local photo place and get it printed and framed!”
As far as rights and pricing, the rights of this photo is owned by, Chris Lee/stl post dispatch. So I do not own the rights to it. I only own the rights to the actual put together and the overall edit. As far as pricing? That’ll be up to you. What were you thinking?
How it works, is I email you the file, You go to your local photo place and get it printed and framed!”
Shortly thereafter, @stlramsphotos became defunct. Lawrence may now be facing copyright infringement lawsuits from both the Post Dispatch and USA Today. We’ll keep you updated.