All, I need some advice here so I am seeking your input.

One of my sons and one of my daughters played in a local basketball tournament in March. Naturally, I took my rig as it was my first opportunity to shoot with my brand new 70-200 f/2.8 IS. I shot away in the presence of an established, full time "firm" who had been hired to shoot the tournament. The league President and the tournament director, both of whom are friends of mine, had no problem with me shooting. In fact, we talked about me shooting the tournament for them next year. I felt I had some good shots, so I posted them to my photoreflect site, http://www.photoreflect.com/scripts/...event=0F21000H, and only handed out cards to parents of my daughter's teammates. None sold.

Yesterday, I got a nastygram from the "firm", stating that they received an unusual comment from someone regarding "their" pictures from the tournament. Apparently a customer was searching for some photographs from the event and came upon mine (I did a google search on the event and my site did not come up). He further stated that they've photographed the tournament for three years and have a great relationship with the organizers. In short, he had a heavy hand and asked me to refrain from shooting at future events, terming the practice "poaching an event". He even asked me to move my site from photoreflect to another backend service to avoid future confusion. I had my PR site for a few months prior to posting the photos from this event.

I do not intend to respond to this clown - I thought he was a jerk when he insulted my equipment at the tournament, and now I now he's a jerk (or a full time guy trying to intimidate me and protect "his" turf). Nor do I intend to put my camera away in his presence, or anyone else's. I feel I should be free to continue to post the better shots for anyone's benefit and purchase, regardless of who "owns" the event. I know for a fact that there was no formal contract and paid no vendor fee, both of which he claimed existed.

I feel like Walmart is breathing down the neck of the Mom & Pop outfit. My daughters are playing in a lacrosse tournament this weekend and the "firm" will be there. Anyone with an opinion on how to approach this situation, I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks,
Jeff