Posts Tagged ‘contract’

I caught this hilarious post by Lux Nightmare on Fleshbot the other morning and thought it was just too funny not to share.

The underlying story of how Philip Warner, AKA Lithium Picnic is back to cheerfully promoting and defending SuicideGirls however is really disappointing. When he found himself at odds with his exclusionary employer SuicideGirls, he cried far and wide, pleading for everyone in the scene to take up his cause with his ‘Free Lithium Picnic’ merch machine and calls for benefit art shows and donation drives, etc. There wasn’t a place on the internet that someone could mention that they kind of think maybe altporn bully SuicideGirls is a ‘blight on our scene’ or whatever without at least a handful of LP supporters and questionable sock puppets interjecting ‘Free Lithium Picnic’ at every turn. Yet somehow the rhetoric seemed mismatched with what few facts had emerged about the $100,000 breach of contract case SuicideGirls had brought against Philip. Although we have been supportive of getting the facts out there as best we can in the past, we’ve never really bought in to the ensuing hype, despite the well intentioned efforts of sites like DeviantNation, who went so far as to pass along a neat little ‘Free Lithium Picnic’ chipin donation flash widgets that they wanted sites like APN to to run so that Philip could generate more funds.

One of the main reasons we do not cover SuicideGirls more often here at APN is that we’ve seen SuicideGirls notoriously controlling contracts and frankly, they don’t look that difficult to find yourself in breach of. I could see participating in legal fee fund raisers and other charity events once the court found Philip Warner not guilty, but if he was guilty of breach, then giving him money would just be a waste. APN attempted to interview Lithium Picnic about what the fight with SG was actually over, but we were informed that we would only be able to interview Apnea instead, as he was not supposed to discuss legal issues pertaining to the case. Not that we ever mind talking to hot and adorable Apnea and she was very helpful and informative in every interaction. However if, like APN, you have been wondering about the actual details of this legal battle, Lux Nightmare’s Fleshbot post links to where Amelia G over at BlueBlood.net wrote SuicideGirls vs Lithium Picnic Lawsuit Settled, which is an excellent deconstruction of the lawsuit and the community’s response to it. The feeling over there seems to be that Apnea is innocent, but LP is at the very least guilty of selling out the principles he asked so many to sacrifice for and support. Not that we mind if ultra sexy and cute Apnea turns out to be the only good guy in the whole legal mess.

I guess what I’m saying is that I’ve never been 100% convinced Lithium Picnic was actually innocent. He worked for SuicideGirls for a long time. He was there when they we’re pulling all sorts of shady business with their models. One falling out among a clan of bad people doesn’t suddenly transform someone into being the good guy. It would be nice if he were innocent, but there was a strong chance he actually wasn’t. We were looking forward to the court’s decision to make everything clear.

According to Philip Warner’s Lithium Picnic Studio news blog, the former Suicidegirls photographer is being sued for “shooting apnea and allegedly operating her www.apneatic.com site.” Presumably, Suicidegirls feels that he has violated the terms of his contract with them and they are therefore taking him to court in Oregon.

On the one hand, he gained a great deal of his popularity and support through shooting content for their site over the years and now it would appear that he’s taking that fanbase and potentially competitive inside information off to start his own thing, which is exactly what a noncompete clause is in place to protect against. On the otherhand, Suicidegirls contracts are notoriously heavy handed when it comes to issues of exclusivity and their terms of noncompete

Obviously, a lot of the details are not available at this time, but we are interested to hear what APN readers thoughts are on the matter. On the one hand, is it fair for a photographer to kickstart his career by taking thousands of dollars and all the access and information a company can give him and then turn around and try to use those resources, including a model that company made popular, to then directly compete with that company, even if that company has made it very clear what their stance on competition is?

On the otherhand, is it fair for a company to only pay a photographer for a few years, benefit greatly from his work during those years, and then demand that no one else ever be able to benefit from that photographer’s work to the point where the photographer is not able to get compensation for taking photographs ever again, not even if he is taking pictures of his own wife?