The widow of an Arkansas photographer who took some 200 photos of members of the Walton family before Walmart became an empire is being sued by the mega-chain, reports Hyperallergic. Walmart wants Helen Huff to turn over six boxes of photos, negatives, and proofs, claiming that the Waltons own the intellectual copyright for the images and that Bob’s Studio of Photography was only holding on to the photos as “as a courtesy.”
As the nonprofit Professional Photographers of America is quick to point out in Huff’s defense, photographers own the copyright for their work under federal law, leaving Walmart without much of a leg to stand on.