Copyright Infringement

James H. Bartolomei III — Copyright Infringement Litigation

Of Counsel, The Duncan Firm, P.A. | James H. Bartolomei III, PA

Human Creativity Built This World — We Fight Infringers to Get Creators Paid.

Every photograph, book, and film starts with one thing no machine can replicate: a human being who saw, imagined, or experienced something worth creating and protecting. Original expression has value — economic, cultural, and legal. James H. Bartolomei III has spent his career enforcing that value in federal court, against the full range of infringers: individual infringers, media companies, and businesses that exploit creative work without a license, and AI companies that built their products on the backs of human creative work without permission, without a license, and without paying the people who made it.

James pursues copyright claims against every category of infringer — from a business that right-clicked a photograph off the internet and used it in marketing without paying for it, to media outlets that republish work without a license, to AI companies whose unlicensed exploitation of copyrighted photographs, books, and films built trillion-dollar businesses on creators’ original work. They didn’t ask. They didn’t pay. James is fighting to change that.

Who We Represent

James represents photographers, authors, filmmakers, clothing designers, and visual artists whose original work has been copied, scraped, stripped of credit, used without a license, or fed into an AI training pipeline — by media outlets, corporations, businesses, AI companies, and individuals alike.

Photographers are the core of the practice. James represents photojournalists and documentary photographers whose work exposes the world’s hardest truths: women’s and children’s rights, war, child marriage and FGM, climate change and environmental destruction, animal rights, and the enduring fights for equality and free expression.  He also represents fashion and celebrity photographers. Photographers represented include Stephanie Sinclair, Paul Nicklen, Cristina Mittermeier, Ami Vitale, Robert Caplin, David Burnett, Todd Bigelow, Julie Dermansky, the Estate of Melvin Sokolsky, Mark Seliger, and William Coupon.

Book authors whose published work has been reproduced without authorization, stored in AI comopanies libraries for research all without a license.

Filmmakers dealing with unauthorized distribution, streaming piracy, or footage and stills used without a license — including by companies building AI training datasets out of film and video content.

Infringement isn’t a minor inconvenience, regardless of who commits it. It costs you licensing revenue, harms the markets you compete in, undercuts your brand, and — for creators whose work serves a mission — it dilutes or distorts the message itself.

Every Infringer Must Be Held Accountable

Most infringement isn’t a tech company building a model. It’s a real estate company using a photograph in a listing without a license. A media outlet republishing an image without credit or payment. A business pulling content off the internet because it assumes no one will notice. James litigates these cases aggressively and prepares each case, and is willing and able to go to trial.

Whether your work was taken by a Fortune 500 company, a small business, a media outlet, or an AI business, you have a claim worth evaluating. 

Two Things That Determine Whether You Win & How Much

Register your copyright. Now. Registering your work with the U.S. Copyright Office within three months of first publication is the single most important step a creator can take — it preserves your right to statutory damages and attorney’s fees. Without timely registration, you may be stuck with actual damages only, which are far harder to prove and often worth far less.

Hire a lawyer who actually litigates these cases — not one who just sends letters. Evaluating an infringement claim and deciding whether to pursue damages, injunctive relief, or both takes real federal litigation experience. Every case is different, but the difference between a strong case and a weak one is rarely obvious to anyone but a lawyer who’s prepared these case for trial before.

Expert Report & Valuation Support

James works with registered industry experts to support damages claims with credible, court-tested valuation reports — establishing fair market licensing value, lost licensing revenue, and the scope of an infringer’s unauthorized use. A well-built expert report can be the difference between a defendant’s lowball settlement offer and full statutory or actual damages, and James knows how to use one to maximize recovery at every stage of a case, from demand letter through trial.

Federal Litigation Experience

James Bartolomei litigates copyright and trademark infringement matters in federal courts nationwide, including DMCA claims under 17 U.S.C. § 1202, statutory damages litigation, class action copyright matters, expert report-based damages cases, and emerging claims against AI companies. He generally works on contingency — creators don’t pay unless he wins.

Get Your Work Evaluated

If you’re a photographer, author, filmmaker, or visual artist and your copyrighted work has been infringed — by a media outlet, a business, a corporation, an individual, or an AI company — contact James H. Bartolomei III for a free consultation.

James H. Bartolomei III, PA, operating Of Counsel with Duncan Firm, P.A. Offices in Little Rock, New York City, and Los Angeles.

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