by David Walker

A California-based entertainment photographer has won a $7,500 court judgment against entertainment photo agency Picture Group and its owner, Frank Micelotta, for unpaid royalties. The judgment was handed down October 31 in small claims court in Beverly Hills.

Photographer Kristian Dowling said in court papers dated September 14, 2011 that Micelotta owed him more than $14,000 in image licensing fees. But $7,500 is the maximum amount that a plaintiff can recover in a small claims court.

"The reason I took it to small claims court is because I couldn't afford to sue him" for the full amount in a state civil claims court, Dowling told PDN.

Micelotta paid Dowling about $5,500 in late October, and promised to pay the rest of the money in four monthly installments. But Dowling pressed his legal claim because Micelotta reneged on an agreement to pay about $7,000 instead of $5,500, according to Dowling.

Micelotta said he and Dowling had a misunderstanding about their agreement over the amount of the October payment. Micelotta accuses Dowling of "looking for a scapegoat" and says that his actions cast Picture Group in an unfair light.

Micelotta admitted in court that he still owed Dowling about $9,000, and said he intended to pay the money. The judge encouraged Dowling to settle with Micelotta for the full debt. But Dowling insisted on the $7,500 judgment instead because he didn't trust Micelotta to live up to another out-of-court agreement.

Dowling says he managed to get Micelotta to pay him a portion of the $14,500 only because Micelotta wanted Dowling to return a 300 mm lens that belonged to Picture Group. Otherwise, Dowling says, "He doesn't return phone calls. He doesn't put stuff in writing. All he ever says is, 'Let's work it out. We'll work it out.'"

Micelotta says he pays his photographers "for everything they do," and that he intends to pay Dowling the full amount that he's owed. "He wanted a judgment so he could send you a story and hurt our business," Micelotta says. "He wanted this so he could put it on Facebook and claim victory to all his friends."

Micelotta says he has paid Dowling a total of $101,838 for Picture Group assignments in the last 20 months, plus the $5,000 at the end of October "but that wasn't good enough because he has another agenda."

"There's a lot of financial improprieties I could tell you about with him. But that's not my style. I'm not trying to drag this guy through the dirt. He's made some really poor decisions," Micelotta says. He goes on to allege several examples and then says, "He's taking his problems out on us."

Dowling responds, "I don't blame Frank for me not having money. I blame him for not paying me. This isn't about me and my sob story. It's about someone taking advantage of desperate photographers and new photographers who don't know any better."

He adds, "We need photographers to understand that they aren't going to get their money."

Dowling acknowledges that he has been paid a total of at least $85,000 for assignments from Picture Group. What he wasn't paid, he says, were the royalties he was also owed for sales of his image.

Picture Group offers to pay photographers royalties in addition to assignment fees. But according to Dowling, the agency often withholds royalty statements--and royalty payments--from photographers. Dowling also believes that Picture Group manipulates sales statements. "What I had in the royalty statements was probably 20 percent of what he [Micelotta] owes me," Dowling asserts.

One of the agency's former contributors, Mychal Watts of Philadelphia, says Picture Group owes him about $1,500. "He [Micelotta] never returned my calls," Watts says. "I got tired of waiting to get paid."
 
New York photographer Shareif Ziyadat says he started shooting for Picture Group in November, 2010, but stopped taking assignments three or four months ago. "I never received a sales sheet [report]. Every time I talked to them about it nothing was ever done," says Ziyadat, who still doesn't know what he's owed. "I was getting the run around. I haven't received any payments."

Other photographers contacted for this story did not return calls, and two Picture Group contributors declined to talk because they are holding out hope that they will eventually be paid. "I'm basically trying to get paid for what's owed and I think it's in my interest to just kind of lay low," says one.

Micelotta says, "We have no reason (to manipulate sales reports.) We're not hiding anything. We have a little catching up to do, but what small agency doesn't?"

He continues, "It's a tough time in the photo industry. We're behind in paying some people. We're not refusing to pay anyone."

Part of the problem, Micelotta explains, is that some of his clients haven't paid money they've owed since July or even earlier. "Cash flow is critical," he says, adding that delayed payments are "unavoidable a couple of times a year."

Asked whether Picture Group was in danger of going bankrupt, Micelotta says, "Absolutely not. We're not in danger. We have a very good business."

But he also says he's going to change Picture Group's payment structure because "it's not feasible economically any longer" to pay royalties in addition to assignment fees. So Micelotta plans to pay flat fee "buyouts" for assignments instead, like his competitors are doing already, he says.

And meanwhile, he says he's "working hard to bring extra capital into the company. We're working with a few investors and a business partner. That's all going to happen in the next few weeks. So it kills me that this is being talked about now, right at the time when we're going to turn things around and get all these photographers paid."

Even Dowling will get the full amount that he's owed, not just the $7,500 that the small claims court ordered Picture Group to pay, Micelotta pledges.

But Dowling is convinced his court order is worth no more than the paper it's printed on. "[Micelotta's] not going to pay it," he says.