Dutch photographer sues over unpaid buxom-blonde pics

Professional Dutch photographer Martin Mooij isn't taking it any more. He's sick and tired of publications using his picture of buxom blonde Luca Prins while she was taking a New Year's dive. The natural Dutch beauty's picture is copied everywhere.

Mooij, who braved standing waist-deep in the icy North Sea at the Dutch resort of Egmond Aan Zee on January 1, and accidentally caught sight of the stunning 17-year-old Luca Prins amongst the crowd, still isn't getting paid one cent for these pictures. And that's his livelihood. The journalists' union in The Netherlands writes in its publication De Journalist that their judicial department has now been asked by Mooij to prepare lawsuits against a whopping 40 publications -- TV, internet and print journalism -- to get paid for their publication of Luca Prins' dive into the icy water of the North Sea on New Year's Day 2009. (Also see our report of ice-diving here) Apparently the only print publication which has paid for its use thus far, was the country's largest daily, De Telegraaf and the satirical internet website, "Geen Stijl". Everybody else has just copied and pasted it for free and it's repeatedly being copied without his permission in TV shows, in newspapers and on the internet news sites, he says. He has given Digital Journal journalist Adriana Stuijt permission to publish this picture - to highlight the plight of photographers worldwide. He also asks readers to help him find this stunning picture. He is already launching forty law suits through the Dutch Society of Journalists' legal department. Says Mooij: "I want my rights, and I want to get paid...It's not only the principle of copyright theft I'm fighting for, but this is a simple matter of income. These pictures represent my livelihood'. He says it might be a major job to trace down all the internet sites where the picture of the striking girl was used - but some were easy to locate: such as the Flemish newspaper De Standaard, which has yet to pay him for his picture, even though they even ran it alongside an interview with the girl. "I find this totally incomprehensible, such behaviour by a top national newspaper,' he said.He's also been sending invoices to the TV programme RTL Boulevard, but his bill has still not been paid. Perhaps by naming and shaming them, Mooij might get paid before it ends up in the law courts...see