Since Mr. Sinelnikov has chosen to pursue legal action against me for defending my rights to have my creative & intellectual work protected under the copyright laws of this country I feel it is only fair that I supply further detailed documentation to support my statements.

I had a paid shooting assignment the night of June 29th, 2007 and even though my client had taken a loss due to poor attendance they still paid me as per our verbal contract. My client, also friends & fellow artists were booked for an event in Southampton, PA starting at 2AM on the 1st of July and I was asked if I'd like to shoot the setup and results for them to use for promotional purposes.  As I had been paid, even though they lost money on the 29th, I agreed and told them I would consider it as part of the shoot from the 29th and do it for FREE for them.  I arrived well in advance, about 10pm actually where I met the owner & manager of the property.  I cleared with them where I could & could not shoot (This constitutes implied consent to be on the premises with a camera and to photograph on the premisis). Later, as the event was about to start I met Mr. Sinelnikov, the promoter of the event and he too gave me his consent to shoot during the party, indicating that if he liked my work he would hire me for more of his events. This is all substantiated by the email I received from him at 11:43pm on July 1st which can be viewed HERE

 On the 3rd of July I advised Mr. Sinelnikov that my gallery of images was ready, gave him instructions how to embed  the gallery into his website, and quoted him my rates and desire to work with him in the future. When reading THIS message please note that I state that he may embed my gallery and it is part of a service I sell to my clients.  I did not at any time grant him permission to download, use, or have in his possession the actual images. Mr. Sinelnikov did, as I instructed, embed my gallery into his website where it remained for at least 24 hours that I am aware of.  At some point in time he removed the embedded gallery and I did not have any further communications from him.

On the 20th of September I was advised via a message on a website used for networking in the Fashion Photography industry that what appeared to be my photographs were tagged as someone else's on the WILDINOUT.COM website.  I immediately went to the site and found that one hundred twenty two (122) of the images in my compiled gallery were indeed posted by the site administrator and that all of them had been altered with the logo of the website overwriting my copyright watermark.  Additionally some of those same images had been used to produce a printed flyer advertizing the event. Providing images for advertizing & promotion is a service that I provide for a fee.  In effect aside from violating my copyrights by reverse engineering my gallery to obtain illegal copies of my images he also stole business income from me. I immediately printed a snapshot of the website, with my images on it, making sure to capture the detail which shows my copyright watermark still visible under the WILDINOUT logo. This snapshot was sent, via securely signed email, to a copyright attorney for review.  I also spoke to my client/friends to see if they were aware of the use of my photos, they were not and when they learned of it they got in contact with the primary promoter who had Mr. Sinelnikov call them within seconds. It was explained to Mr. Sinelnikov that he had stolen my work and he needed to 'make it right with me, not with them'.  I received a phone call from him only minutes later.

In the course of that phone conversation I heard every excuse under the sun.  I was also advised that 'I didn't take your photos.. someone else did print-screens and sent them to me'. I was also offered future work (like I believe that would happen), but at no time proper payment or compensation for stealing my work. I was irate, I advised that it was a criminal offense and that it was also unethical behavior. Upon Mr. Sinelnikov's pleadings I agreed to not pursue the matter further if I was paid for the shooting time ($400) + $1,200.00 to compensate for the lost income in sales, and to license the images properly for display on his website instead of in my protected gallery.  Mr. Sinelnikov, who claims on his internet profiles to have an income in excess of $250,000.00 a year, told me he could not afford that.  I advised that I would then pursue my rights under the copyright laws in which case he would be looking at a minimum award of $750.00 to a maximum award of $350,000.00 per infraction.  Do the math, there were 122 infractions.  The phone conversation ended with Mr. Sinelnikov advising he'd find a way to pay me what was due to set matters straight.

I immediately followed this conversation up by sending a copy of all past communications, and a recap of my position base don the phone conversation to Mr. Sinelnikov with a copy going to the copyright lawyer who was reviewing the case for me.  That email can be viewed HERE. When reading this, please note that it also includes Mr. Sinelnikov's response to receiving the LINK to my gallery.

I then awaited a response from him and advice as to when this matter would be settled or if I was to pursue litigation.  The response that I received was a side-step to try and avoid both providing reasonable compensation for my work, and a copyright infringement lawsuit.  I immediately countered with the message HERE again with a copy to the copyright lawyer and digitally signed to prove authenticity. There was no response from Mr. Sinelnikov.

I did not, and do not, have the money to file the required paperwork for a copyright infringement suit of this magnitude. The local courts don't handle copyright violations, so it becomes a matter of the man with the most money getting away with a crime while the injured party looses the last of his dignity & self-worth because he's poor and can't afford to protect his own rights.  It's too much to bear, so I'm fighting back the only way that I can WITH THE TRUTH and with my rights under the First Amendment to be able to freely speak that TRUTH.

I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for taking the time to read these facts.  Perhaps there is some kind of justice for the little guy.