Slashdot Mirror
Pro Photographers that Will Sell the Copyright?
Shook asks: "Today, my fiancee and I talked to a wedding photographer known for being technologically savvy. (He uses fully digital equipment, the couple can make changes to the album online before printing, relatives can order prints of specific pictures online). I knew going into this that professional photographers generally retain the copyright to the images and all requests for reprints must go through the photographer. During our consultation, I asked him if it would be an option to obtain the copyright from him and get CDs of the original high-resolution images. He said that he has never sold a copyright, was not sure what he would want to charge, but he said it would 'be expensive.' In the end, the photographer is too expensive for our budget ($2000-$4500), so I didn't discuss it further. With the ongoing extension of copyright time limits, when does it even expire? What if my grandchildren want copies of my pictures? Do they need to track down his corporate (or actual) descendant and get permission? In addition, there is the classic issue, what if I can't find him in 20 years?"
"He did go into the artistic reasons why he retains copyrights. He said we may make reprints of the photos at a low-quality shop and tarnish his professional reputation. He did say he does provide 'middle resolution images' on CD or password-protected FTP free of charge.
All this seems backward to me. He wants us to pay several thousands of dollars for pictures of ourselves, and we don't get the copyright as part of our package? As we have heard endlessly on this site, record companies own the copyrights to the artists' works. As the paying party commissioning this artist's work, it would seem sensible to me that we also get rights to reproduction, publication, modification (even sale) of the work. Isn't our position similar to that of a record company?
I know that the photographer retaining copyright is standard business practice, so this is not a dealbreaker for me. Still, I'm interested in this issue. Has anyone found photographers that sell their copyrights? Has anyone been able to negotiate copyrights as part of a professional photography package?
On a related note, the photographer mentioned that before he was a photographer for weddings, he worked mostly for sports magazines and for a fast food chain. In the business world, does anyone know who keeps the copyright? Would go to Weightlifting Monthly and Burger Shack, or does Photo Joe keep the rights?"
All this seems backward to me. He wants us to pay several thousands of dollars for pictures of ourselves, and we don't get the copyright as part of our package? As we have heard endlessly on this site, record companies own the copyrights to the artists' works. As the paying party commissioning this artist's work, it would seem sensible to me that we also get rights to reproduction, publication, modification (even sale) of the work. Isn't our position similar to that of a record company?
I know that the photographer retaining copyright is standard business practice, so this is not a dealbreaker for me. Still, I'm interested in this issue. Has anyone found photographers that sell their copyrights? Has anyone been able to negotiate copyrights as part of a professional photography package?
On a related note, the photographer mentioned that before he was a photographer for weddings, he worked mostly for sports magazines and for a fast food chain. In the business world, does anyone know who keeps the copyright? Would go to Weightlifting Monthly and Burger Shack, or does Photo Joe keep the rights?"
I bought a Powershot Pro1 so I could take my own damn pictures. Fuck 'em.
P.S. That means you Sears Photo Center. You will not receive one more dollar of my money.
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My suggestion to you: keep shopping. There are photographers who will sell you the photos, you just need to look harder. It's a tough economy, even for photographers.
Tell them that if they won't give you the photos, then they won't get your business. Be nice to them and promise to not sell the photos or use them publically, whatever.
It may be their intellectual property, but it's YOUR WEDDING and YOUR MEMORIES. This isn't just some business transaction, it's YOUR sacred moment.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
- Why would I make a crappy print to put in my album?
- If a relative made the print, exactly what is the probability they remember the photographer who took the shot?
- How many people actually decide on a photographer based on the the quality of the print and not the person's opinion of the photographer?
I'm all for making money, but at least give me a plausible reason why I shouldn't own shots of myself.Your best bet is to find someone who's not a pro, but has real skill. Someone who has another day job, but who loves to shoot as a hobby, has a pleasant personality, has years of real wedding experience, and who moonlights. These people will deliver quality results, but will gladly hand over the copyrights. Often, their only requirement is that they can use a few shots from the shoot for their own portfolio.
This type is harder to find than a regular pro since they don't advertise in the yellow pages, but it's worth looking into. Your best bet is to go to a high-quality local lab, the sort of place that us freaky amateur shutterbugs go to, and asking the employees there directly. You'd be surprised; some of the best wedding photography I've ever seen was done by a mining engineer and a building supply store's shipping clerk.
As with any photographer, ask to see a portfolio of previous wedding work, ask them for references, and shop around for several candidates first. This is a buyer's market, after all.
All this takes some legwork, but in the end you'll have professional-level results, and the legal right to make a copy of any shot for anyone you damn well please.
I was always kinda amazed about the "wedding photo" scam, you pay a guy thousands of dollars to show up at your wedding and take photos he intends to sell to your relative.
Seems like a good photographer who is also a good businessman would calculate the profit (not gross - he has costs in it) to be expected from selling to your relatives and sell you the copyright for seventy five cents on the dollar of the expected profits.
It's only fair that he be compensated for his loss of revenue.
He can then spend the time he'd spend managing printing to go shoot another job.
The prints do make money, yes, but the big drop in the bucket is the initial fee for shooting the wedding.
A smart photographer would do more weddings and make more money.
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OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
When I got married, my soon to be wife and her father made up a contract that specifically stated that we will pay the photog for services, purchase all film used and will retain all said rights to the film and photos.
We went to a few photogs before one agreed, then kept the negatives after the wedding. Needless to say - he signed the contract and we got our negatives. Which we promptly had scanned, archived on CDs, and uploaded to shutterfly.com to allow anyone to purchase any photos they want without having to go through us.
Stupid stupid stupid business model. Enjoy the $1500 you made for one nights work.
Don't do it! You'll end up with 15 rolls of film taken by drunk wedding guests. I'm not really into the posed stuff either but I'm glad we had them taken now (we got married 10 months ago) you're really deluded if you think 15 rolls taken by drunk amateurs is going to be a reasonable substitute for some taken by a pro.
I don't drink, nor do many of my friends. Those that do rarely "get drunk". Most of us a pretty handy with a camera too. While amateur photos may not approach the quality of someone who can field-strip a Voigtlander blindfolded, I tend to think that the photos will have more soul and personal value if they're taken by my friends.
Errors and Omissions insurance - if the wedding photo's completely suck, you can have it reshot by the photographer and all of it paid for. This cost about 150 a year.
Does this insurance cover flying all the friends and relatives back into town, paying for their hotel stay, hiring the caterers again, renting the facilities for the wedding and reception, decorating it with flowers, renting the limosine, and restaging the entire wedding and reception just so you can reshoot it?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
You do realise that anyother humanbeing does NOT see a photographer at a wedding as an artist and as the artist is payed (usually ALOT) it is more then reasonable that the person hiring the photographer gets copyright. Like for ANY other hired artist situation.
Secondly, you see these as photos of yourselves. I don't see it that way. I see it as my photo of you, or my photo that you happen to be in and sometimes even just my photo and you completely dissapear in it and all i see is my work. I guess it depends on the photographer. What I do is try and capture you as I see you.
When I write software at work, I see it as my solution to their requirements, or my software that happens to solve their problem, and the company completely dissapear (sic) in it and all I see is my work.
Funny... the company still keeps its copyright. It's called a work for hire. Get over yourself - we're all professionals - and when we're getting paid, we're serving our employers.
If I'm consulting as a work for hire situation, as most other people do, you charge 3-4 times your hourly salary to account for your overhead, time spent hunting down new leads/clients, etc. You may make 50/hr on salary but as a consultant you need to charge maybe 125 or more to have the same amount of money in your pocket at the end of the year.
Like I said, I do some things as work for hire and get paid appropriately for it. People generaly opt for the lower fees and even some of those that ascertain the rights to reproduce still come back to me for prints because of the quality of my printing.
If that's something a potential client doesn't understand and doesn't want to pay for, I have no problem steering them in a direction of a photographer that can better serve their needs and I don't get a kick back from it.
Like I said, there are different segments of the market. Some photographers have packages that start at 20k and do very well.
Open Source Java DAO Generator
Photography is clearly work-for-hire. A more valid comparison would be a programmer hired to write up a program in VB or Delphi who gives the company the binary that they're allowed to copy, modify, etc while keeping the copyright on the source. I don't think any sane company would agree to such an arrangement. Yes, a photographer or programmer has the right to demand such things, but the buyer can demand anything he wants; I and many people here realize that amateurs are probably more likely to be flexible in such demands because they don't plan on using the copyright on high quality source as a "racket" to gain more money in the future. Photographers are paid to take pictures. If people want more work from the photographer (like further development work), it should be their choice, not a legally enforced condition (okay, technically they *could* hire anyone to work on the binary/low quality prints, but that's a pretty unreasonable condition). I would guess it more market efficient to have the photography and development jobs separate.
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You might get decent pictures if your guests bring their own cameras, and they are half way decent picture takers, but please don't rely on those disposable cameras.
We got married only a few months ago and we hired a professional photographer as well as placing a disposable camera on each table. Honestly we might as well have saved the $100 or so we spent on disposable cameras. About 90% of the pictures from disposable cameras were utter crap. Mostly because they were under-exposed or blurry. My guess is that most people didn't notice there was a switch to turn the flash on. We really only got about 4-5 decent pictures from all the disposable cameras.
Our photograper however was great and we got tons of good pictures. I'll post again as a reply to the main topic discussing how we found our photographer and her cost, etc.
Computers don't make mistakes. What they do, they do on purpose.
>Why should the photographer give up to you a potential revenue stream for cheap?
I work in the satellite business and I know there's two kinds of installers.
There's the kind like me, who go to a person's house, point the dish, program the satellite receiver, and that's it. Customer is happy and they pay me. When the transponder list goes out of date, sometimes they'll come to my store and pay $15 to get me to update it (it only takes 10 minutes), or sometimes they'll just download a new one from satcodx or lyngsat. I don't get worked up about that, it's only $15.
Then there's type number two. They do the same work as me, but they spend an extra minute secretly setting the lockout code on the receiver. Then, when the transponder list is out of date, they charge another $75 to go out and push a few buttons.
Guess who sells, and eventually, makes more?
I do. Becuase, the people who bought the other guy's service come to me after and buy a new receiver to replace the one the other person wrecked, or, if they're lucky, they pay me $15 to find the generic unlock code for their receiver (often, but not always, available).
Get over yourself. You just make yourself look unprofessional by retaining rights to something that makes absolutely NO sense for you to own, and you encourage people to do the work for themselves (just as word gets out about the "lockout guy" people buy satellite meters from me and do the work themselves). Sure, they'll definately do a poorer job than you, just as people trying to point their own dishes rarely peak them properly, but as with photos they'd rather have an "OK" job over a "Great" one if they don't have to take the same asprin you're taking right now whenever they want reprints.
But hey, it's your business. All I know is, when my wedding comes up, I don't think I'll be bothering with a photographer. Not unless I find one that is willing to, at no extra cost, let me have the rights to the photos. Otherwise, fuck it, I'll just get buy a couple of nice cameras and ask the moms and dads to take the shots. I know my parents are competent to take a level shot, and since they know that if they don't take half decent photos, they're wrecking the wedding, they'll know well enough not to get completely smashed.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
You don't relinquish any copyright, you keep your copyright, but you distribute it with a specific license. Things are different: You are still the copyright owner.
In the business world, and a lot of artistic areas too, when you are hired to do a job you relinquish copyright almost every single time. Whatever I do for my company is owned by my company.
I still don't get why it has to be different with photography.
Yes, I asked you your view of my wedding. I'm f#$%ing paying you for it, so at the end it should be mine. Which doesn't mean you can't get credit for it.
When you hire a contractor, they don't leave with the furniture they built. When you hire a portrait painter, they leave you the frame. When you hire a software engineer, they don't leave with their code.
So why when we hire a photographer he leaves with the pictures!
Write boring code, not shiny code!
"Secondly, you see these as photos of yourselves. I don't see it that way. I see it as my photo of you, or my photo that you happen to be in and sometimes even just my photo and you completely dissapear in it and all i see is my work."
Well I see it as I am paying you to take pictures of me and my wife. If I paid you to write a program, manual, ad copy, or even a book I would own the copyright. The photographer that we used at our wedding is offering to sell me the negatives for $75 three years after the fact to clean his files out.
Yea if you hire the model I do not see a problem with you keeping the copyright but if I am paying you then like any other situation like that I should own the copyright.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
If you write software for someone, lets say you do it in Visual Studio, or IdeaJ, or WebShpere, are you required to give them a copy of that so that they can go in and make changes to the code as easily as you did?
That's rediculous. That's like asking if you give your customers access to your darkroom. When you write custom code the customer gets it, and exclusive rights to it, in almost every case. Every software contracting job I've worked on has had a boilerplate work-for-hire form that I had to sign all my copyrights away on.
The product is the prints, the negatives are just a way to get there.
If you ask me, the product is the photographs, not the prints... But I guess that's why I didn't hire somebody like you to take the pictures at my wedding. Hell, I didn't even get any prints, though I do have 20Gb of beautifully retouched high-resoulution digital images I could easily make prints from.
Why do I have to change how I run my business to make you happy if I can find enough customers that appreciate the time and effort I put into my work?
You shouldn't. However I think the only reason you can find enough customers to agree with your terms is that there is a general lack of understanding about how work for hire is generally handled, and that until recently there weren't a lot of options; you just couldn't find a photographer that would transfer rights. Now that copyrights are becoming better understood, and more photographers are willing to part with the reproduction rights that will likely start to change. This question being posted on Slashdot is an example of that. I do, however, think your original explanation of why was not the primary reason, if it's the reason at all. Clearly you do it because it's in your business interests. Reality, and your most recent response, is at odds with your initial explanation. Judging by this comment though:
Even when I do that, people still come back to me to make reprints either because they like the quality of my prints, I'm sometimes cheaper than comparable quality printing or they don't want some other person to see them naked.
I wonder if it would actually have much of an impact on your business at all either way.
tend to think that the photos will have more soul and personal value if they're taken by my friends.
The mother of the bride doesn't give a stuff about the soul and personal values of your friends (who she probably doesn't approve of either). She wants perfectly lit, perfectly posed, crystal clear images of her family looking healthy and prosperous that she can impress her friends with at the bridge club. That's why people hire pros who've done this hundreds of time before, bring studio lighting with them, have a good hand for retouching, etc.
For what it's worth, I am a "professional digital photographer" (ten years), specializing in sports, events (weddings, reunions, etc), nature photography and photojournalism.
What I've found is that most photographers-who-have-gone-digital fail to understand that the release of a raw image or "prime distributable" (aka full-res JPEG) is simply the transfer of a copy and is, in and of itself, simply a form of publication. In the film days, the release of the negative was "the end" of the usability of that photo for the photographer. Indeed, it would mean several things: no more use for self-promotion, loss of portfolio, and no more ability to make money from copies or archive being the foremost of them. Naturally, in the digital age, this is no longer true, because every transfer is really just a copy. Even if I put all the raw files on CD and hand them to the client, the original raw files may well be sitting on the camera's microdrive, and maybe on my hard drive, too -- at least until I "take care of them."
In reality, though, if I release raws (rare) or prime distros (common), I simply ask the client as to whether or not they'll sign off that I have the right to continue using the image(s) in the promotion of my services. It's a fair-and-equal exchange world, right? (or, it should be). In other words, we tend to equate the release of a prime distro with release of copyright, but that's not necessarily true.
Copyright, per se, in the digital realm, does not really mean "the right to make copies". Think about it....if I sell "copyright" to a newspaper, but they ask me to maintain a searchable archive for their convenience (almost all of them do), how can I do so without making copies? I can't even back them up on CD without doing copying the original files.
So what's being bandied about in most cases as "copyright" is really "right of publication". When I ask a client to allow me to continue limited use of the photos and they grant it, what is literally happening (and what the contract language stipulates) is that the client is being awarded non-exclusive publication rights, and I am signing off that I will limit my use of the photos.
All that having been said, if I do sell Copyright in the traditional sense, that's another matter. After ten-plus years as a photographer, I find that Copyright only gets sold to newspapers, other publishers, and the government. In those instances, it is more apropros to say that I am granting those institutions exclusive publication rights. The simplicity of maintaining an archive means that I retain copies even of these files, but have signed an agreement that forbids me their tangible use.
To address the original post more directly, your cited photographer comes across as a bit of a knucklehead to me, and with all due respect, you were asking for the wrong thing. What you should have asked for was simply copies of the prime distros and exclusive or non-exclusive publications rights, with the photographer committing to limited use and/or publication rights.
In truth, though, in a fair-and-equal exchange world, it benefits neither the client nor the photographer (of a wedding, anyway) to limit the photographer's permissive use of the results of his/her own creativity, and some photographers would indeed find the premise rather offensive. I'm just an easy-going guy who has learned that Copyright and Publication in the Digital Millenium are sorely misunderstood, so I've come to offer variances in the wording of things that seem to make everyone happy. However, if a wedding client was absolutely steadfast about wanting Copyright (in the traditional sense), forbidding me the use of my own creative impetus, well, it's almost like a hostile bid in a corporate takeover: it makes nobody feel good about what they do. There are several ways I rid myself of such clients; the easiest is to jack my prices so high they no longer want me.
~jdg~ "There are no divisions between things about to collide." - Ian McCullough