It was reported in WWD today that Don Ashby and Marcio Madeira (among others) the owners of fashion runway photo website Firstview.com were arrested by French authorities at the Chanel show on Monday for allegedly violating intellectual property laws in France. WWD reported “Françoise Benhamou, head of judicial affairs and intellectual property at the French Fashion Federation, described an “illicit traffic” of photographs for profit that upset the federation and some of its largest members.”
Firstview shoots the American and European shows for Style.com and are very aggressive in going after other photographers’ business by severely underbidding the competition. For example, they are the “official photographers” for IMG’s Mercedes-Benz 7thonsixth shows. Our photographer Randy Brooke lost the 7thonsixth account to Don Ashby & Marcio Madeira several seasons back after Firstview offered to shoot the shows for free (they did get some free ads and mentions in 7thonsixth advertising). It was an offer 7thonsixth could not refuse.
