Two and a half centuries ago the Queen Anne's Revenge, the infamous pirate captain Blackbeard's flagship was a problem for merchant ships. Now, in the year 2015 the sunken pirate vessel is proving to be a nuisance again.
Rick Allen, who owns the Fayetteville video company Nautilus Productions, is suing the North Carolina legislature over a law that he argues hurt his company. He also claims that the law is completely unconstitutional.
House Bill 184, or "Blackbeard's Law" states that any vessel of shipwreck that is state property (such as the Revenge) is public record and therefore any photos or video of it that exist are public property. Allen claims that this law caused his footage of the wreck to be publicly distributed by the state without being paid a royalty.
Allen is specifically suing Governor Pat McCrory, various state legislators, and the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
"As caretakers of archival records who care strongly about openness in government and public records, House Bill 184 is part of an ongoing effort of the Department of Cultural Resources' desire to clarify what is a public record and when it can be made available to the public," said Department of Cultural Resources spokeswoman Cary Cox in a statement.
The Queen Anne's Revenge wreck was discovered in 1996 about a mile from Atlantic Beach, North Carolina in the Atlantic Ocean.
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