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Photographers benefit from ASMP's advocacy, protection, action, and information
Protecting photographers' interests requires advocacy action in the courts and legislature plus photographer awareness of how legalities affect their businesses.
For example, here's Leif Skoogfors' letter about the value of ASMP support.
ASMP's efforts in the legal arena have benefited all individual creators. We have assisted photographers and other creators in legal actions from small claims courts to the U.S. Supreme Court. Each court decision has an impact on your business in some manner.
Support the ASMP Legal Action Fund
Support the Legal Action Fund and you are supporting ASMP’s role as an organization of photographers helping photographers. The ASMP Legal Action Fund was established to build a financial war chest—a vital resource to be used in the ongoing effort to improve the business environment for publications photographers. Since its inception, the fund has been generously supported by ASMP members, but they can’t do it alone. You can help. Any contribution will be appreciated, and used to support freelance publication photographers. Thank you.
You can make a contribution via…
PayPal:
Postal mail with a check, addressed to:
ASMP Legal Action Fund
ASMP
150 N. Second Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106.Phone with a credit card:
215-451-ASMP (2767) ext. 1200.
Support the ASMP Legal Action—it’s in your own interests!
Please note: Contributions are not tax deductible as a charitable contribution but might be deductible as a business expense. Please consult your tax adviser.
Legal Action Fund Request Criteria
The establishment of the ASMP Legal Action Fund has brought many requests for aid from ASMP in the form of financial and/or legal assistance. Photographers should be aware that the following criteria (in no particular order) are considered, among others, in evaluating their requests for legal and/or financial assistance in legal controversies:
- Quality of the photographer's paperwork
- Membership in ASMP
- Overall industry impact
- Precedent-setting possibilities
- Nature of the offender's conduct
- Nature of the grievance
We examine the following items:
- All transactional paperwork
- Formal written request for aid, including an outline of the claim
We also seek the following:
- Discussion with the lawyer involved
- Copies of all pleadings
- What aid is requested and how it will be used
- Budget for the potential or actual litigation
- Proposed course of action to resolve the situation
- Copies of all settlement correspondence
Any money paid from the Legal Action Fund will be sent directly to the photographer’s attorneys. If the photographer receives any financial recovery in the case, either through settlement or judgment, ASMP expects to be repaid whatever money it has advanced. Generally, ASMP does not assist in simple collection cases or contract disputes, or in cases where there are already many decisions on the books establishing the law fairly clearly. Also, ASMP does not assist in cases where the only dispute is how much money the photographer should receive. Finally, there is a rebuttable presumption against assisting in cases at the trial level because the facts of the case tend both to be uncertain and to control the result in the case. ASMP does not seek to promote or prolong litigation, but rather seeks to assure that the outcome of cases involving major principles or practices is fair and favorable to photographers.