The Story of Bill Stettner

THE PASSING OF THE REVISIONS TO THE COPYRIGHT ACT IN THE USA, HAD DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES FOR BILL STETTNER AND HIS CO-CAMPAIGNERS.

                                     Portrait of Bill Stettner in his shop 'The Garage Sale', New York 

BILL STETTNER was a very successful New York advertising photographer, with an amazing inventive mind, and many iconic images under his belt. He was also believed a great injustice was being perpetrated on photographers around the world.

Through the late eighties, Bill and a number of other American photographers fought a battle over the right of a photographer to own the copyright in their own images - the first such action, in what is now accepted as a photographer’s right just about everywhere around the world.

The passing of the revisions to the copyright act had disastrous consequences for Stettner and his co-campaigners.

Many of the committee found it difficult to get meaningful work after the revisions to the copyright act became law (unless they waived their rights) - but Bill, as the main protagonist, was black-balled by the New York advertising industry, and never worked again as a photographer.

He eventually lost everything to his creditors.