They are suing Philip over an alleged breach of contract for shooting TFP photos of me which were used on my membership site apneatic.com. They also claim that he is the owner of my site and are trying to take the money I've made on my site from me. My site is and has always been mine in every way possible. Of course we will prove all of this in court, but it costs $350 an hour for attorneys to help us do that.

His SG contract allowed him to shoot for single girl personality based sites like mine but for some reason SG suddenly decided that my site was a competitor to their empire of books, magazines, DVDs, radio shows, and television and demanded $100,000 in damages from him. The lawsuit has gone on for almost all of this year, SG has made no attempts to resolve or mediate and are pushing this to a very expensive trial. Philip has had to spend over $10,000 so far defending himself and this figure will likely triple when it goes to trial.

No. Philip has never shot any sets for Godsgirls and never shot content for competing sites while he was working with SG.

No, there are no guarantees that he'll be able to recoup his expenses even if he wins the trial.

The jurisdiction of his contract with SG is in Oregon so an Oregon attorney must handle the case. While there are many "pro artist" legal groups out there, most of them only help with dispute letters and contract interpretation. There are no pro bono litigation resources that we are aware of in Oregon.

Yes and Yes. You'd be surprised how hard and expensive it is to prove that when the person harassing you has 10 times more money to throw at the problem and an attorney highly skilled at creating expensive problems. We have no doubts we will win this if it goes to trial, their strategy appears to be to draw it out and outspend us.

The idea of an intrinsically competitive photographer is a construction they made up to threaten the models with breach for shooting with him. The shoots were in no way competitive to SG and were shot for portfolio and for promotion for Gasoline Glamour jewelry. Both of the models have portfolios on Model Mayhem and are available for portfolio work.

Philip is a contract freelance photographer with over twenty clients, he is not "employed" by any of them. If he shoots luggage tags for Continental Airlines he is not a competitor to American Airlines. He is not an airline. He is not a paysite. Philip does not own or operate a paysite and he's not an employee or stakeholder of any web site.

The notion that he is intrinsically "competitive" is preposterous, there is only 'competing photography' shot for a competing business purpose.

Both of the models were threatened and told that they would be sued, they were also told that SG was in possession of the photos (though they had never left Philip's laptop). They told the girls that Philip had contacted them and taunted them about the photos, again untrue. Both of the girls were given prewritten statements to sign by the end of the day saying that Philip solicited and tricked them into breaking their SG contracts. They were told that they wouldn't be sued if they signed the statements.

The irony is that Sean and Missy forgot that the official policy on shooting for noncompetitive projects is stated on the SG site (see below) and clearly states that what they did was allowed - Philip's nonSG portfolio work is linked as examples of what models are allowed to do! More on that can be found HERE.

Send a certified letter to the SG office with a signature receipt request to validate it was received. All you have to do is tell them in writing that you no longer wish to be a part of the site and are formally terminating the contract. If that doesn't work you can try posting this phrase on your profile "Why is SG suing Lithium Picnic?" and you'll be on your way to the archive in no time. Do not do anything to violate the terms of your agreement or you may find yourself in a lawsuit.

Yes. The photos that I shot with Missy (one of the owners of SG) for the SG site were sold and those images have appeared all over the web on various porn sites. The irony here is that when i told her I was thinking about shooting with Godsgirls she warned me they were owned by a large porn company and she told me my images would end up on porn sites all over the web.

Many have speculated that the sale was punitive in nature as they mostly chose girls that had left or been kicked off the site. The photos were not screened or edited, light tests and outtakes were all packaged. You can read more about it and see some samples of the photos here

Apparently not.

Right now the most helpful and effective thing people can do to help is to spread the word and help insure this doesn't get covered up swept under the rug. Many SG members and models have been booted for asking questions about Philip's situation. SG has done a great job of scrubbing any mention of him from the boards and member posts. Posting links to this site and spreading the word and the truth is one of the most effective ways to support us. We also have shirts and prints for sale, the links are at the top left of this page.