By Owen Reyes · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Richard Horgan on FishbowlLA, July 2012
In early July 2012, FishbowlLA tracked a small back-and-forth between The Hollywood Reporter and Mediaite. THR’s legal-affairs writer Eriq Gardner had published an item about a photo-copyright lawsuit against the Mediaite-network site Styleite. Mediaite owner Dan Abrams fired back with a response on his own site.
Then
The episode was a small example of a recurring early-2010s digital-media legal hazard: photo-copyright litigation against websites that used images without proper licensing.
Eriq Gardner was, in 2012, The Hollywood Reporter’s leading legal-affairs writer. Dan Abrams — the legal commentator and digital-media entrepreneur — responded on Mediaite.
Now
The photo-copyright-litigation hazard the episode illustrated has remained a significant operational reality for digital-media operations.
Eriq Gardner left The Hollywood Reporter and co-founded Puck News in 2021. Dan Abrams has continued as one of the more-prolific American legal-commentator-and-media-entrepreneur figures.
The 2012 piece reads now as a small documented moment of early-2010s digital-media legal-and-competitive culture.
Original report archived on the Wayback Machine.