Support Artist Intellectual Property Copyright in Canada

Hi, my name is Morgan Turner, and I'm a professional commercial photographer in Cranbrook BC, Canada. I primarily work with other businesses and organizations to produce specialized images for their marketing and advertising material, and have worked with many different clients across the Kootenays, nationally and internationally

I've been in business full-time since April 2019, and over the past 5 years, have faced and overcome a number of challenges with starting and running my own business, including having the world as we know it change significantly in 2020 as I was completing my first year in business.

At the end of 2023, I encountered a new issue, which I have discovered that I now need to seek help with.

One of the organizations I had been working with for a few years decided to use 13 of my images in various publications without permission or payment, even though they had previously paid for the use of other images and are fully aware that the images are my intellectual property and licensing their use is a key part of how I earn my living as a professional artist.

The organization also happens to be my local government, The City of Cranbrook.

They use the images for attracting new businesses, investors, land developers and new residents to our area, and have even won awards for marketing material that my photos are included in, so they definitely have value to The City.

I have already spent nearly $7,000 in legal fees over the past 8 months, working with an Intellectual Property Lawyer from Vancouver, trying to negotiate with The City to get paid for my work, and am now faced with having to file a lawsuit against them because they have refused to come to a reasonable agreement with me.

The lawsuit is going to end up costing me somewhere in the ballpark of $100,000 over the course of process, which will likely take 12-18 months. I initially need to come up with $5,000 in order to have the lawsuit prepared and submitted to get the process started.

I didn't want for this to have to get to this point, and I had no idea that it would actually come to having to file a lawsuit, but I've been left with no other choice and I feel like I need to pursue this purely out of principle to have it proven in court that The City of Cranbrook is in the wrong and can't take and use Intellectual Property without license.

My initial invoice to The City back in December was for $6,930, which was double the rate they had been paying, as a penalty for having used the photos without license - they offered me $1500, which was for half of the images at a lower rate than they were paying when licensing the images properly. I went back and forth with them a few times trying to negotiate with them, and was met with ignorant, unprofessional and untrue statements. Realizing that they weren't going to negotiate reasonably with me, I informed them that I would have to seek legal assistance with the matter.

I reached out to an IP specialist lawyer in Vancouver, provided all of the related communications and documentation that I have, and he implied that it was a pretty clear situation and that it should realistically be resolved quite quickly.

Over the past 8 months, The City has either completely disregarded correspondence from my lawyer and not responded at all, or returned disrespectfully low counter-offers.

Our last correspondence indicated that I was seeking a payment amount that would cover my original invoice and the expenses I've incurred in trying to resolve this issue, and that if they weren't willing to agree to that resolution, that we would proceed with legal action.

They didn't even bother to respond.

Through this experience, I have also discovered a major flaw in the protection offered by Canadian Copyright Law - Unless you have $100k to take someone to court, there is absolutely no protection for your creative works. Anyone can take and use our creative works without permission, because the only true and effective solution is to have your case heard in Supreme Court.

Yes, copyright infringement is against the law and a federal offence, yes we own the copyright to our creative works without needing to register it, and yes there are substantial penalties for copyright infringement.... but only if you can afford to take it to court.

I didn't have an extra $7,000 to burn, that money should have been for covering life expenses and supporting my still quite new business, but I was hopeful that I would be able to recover my costs.

Now I need to come up with the funds to take this to court so I can both recoup my losses, and stand up for both my own creative rights, and by association the rights of all creatives.

We deserve to be able to stand up for ourselves, and we deserve to be paid fort the use of our creative works.

If I can raise enough money to see this through, I plan on using any surplus of funds raised and a portion of any money I am awarded outside of covering my costs, to help other artists in similar situations and push for change in copyright law to make copyright protection more accessible for Canadian artists.

I would love to pay it forward and start a foundation for artists that helps others facing similar challenges.

Any amount you can spare to help me proceed with pursuing defending artist's copyright would be gratefully appreciated.