Threat of legal action over charity calendar

Wondered if anyone had any advice to offer please. I'm being threatened with legal action over a "Calendar Girls" style horse riding calendar I am creating for charity.

We borrowed a horse from a stables in North Yorkshire to do a shoot for the calendar. The stables (unbeknown to me at the time) gave us one of their customers horses for an hour, after asking the owners permission to do so of course.

Almost twelve months on and the girl who owns the horse has just emailed me telling me not to use any of the photographs and to remove all photographs with her horse on from the website, Facebook, and the calendar, or she will take legal action against me! She's also been posting threatening messages on our facebook pages.

The calendar is being printed right now. All proceeds are going to Multiple Sclerosis and Leukodystrophy research.

What to do? There is no law that I know of saying you can't take photographs of animals, unless they are on the owners own private property, in which case you need the owners permission, but these were taken on land owned by the stables and anyway, she did give her permission in the first place, though it has turned out that she wasn't told of the nature of the shoot.

The photos are at hottotrot.org/jessejames.htm


andy

Hi Andy - I read 38 replies to this elsewhere before seeing it on here.

I'm of the view that the issue is between owner and stables and that model release or property release would't be required.

I'd sit tight and wait to see what she does before doing anything that incurs you costs.

I think it's a difficult one tbh, everything is in your favour (being for a charity etc)... until you see the photos, in which case a judge might think the owner has a reasonable right to feel upset about their pictures being used with topless models.

Did the stable owner explain exactly what type of photos were going to be taken to the horses owner? They may need to testify to that effect if it ever goes to court.

Either way I would get legal advice from a solicitor, and look at best case and worst case scenarios :/

I don't know the photos in question - but I believe that legally she hasn't a leg to stand on.

xx

Thanks for your replies

I've emailed the millionaire property developer now and told him that i will remove all photos of his daughter's horse so as not to cause any deliberate offence, and I'm going up to Thirsk a week on Thursday, weather permitting, to do another shoot.

Anyone have a horse we can borrow?

You could ask over on Dogsey.com - a few people there have horses

Just make sure they know what type of photos you're taking

We now have a brand spanking new photo of Jesse James for the calendar, and there are some snapshots from the day on Jesses page - hottotrot.org/jessejames.htm

Tulip, the horse in the calendar photo, looks uncannily like Flame, the horse that all the kerfuffle was over!

To anyone who orders a calendar - if you mention 'Jesse James' when you order, we'll include a signed 10" x 8" photo of Jess from the last disputed shoot when we send your calendar, but don't tell anyone, just incase

100% of the price of the calendar goes to The Myelin Project for MS and Leukodystrophy research btw

I've put some thumbnails on the hottotrot.org website of the actual calendar photos if anyone would like a peek.

16 Equestiennes bare all for MS and Leukodystrophy research

hottotrot.org/calendarphotographs.htm

The calendar is also for sale on ebay now (just search for hot to trot)

Regards,

Andy