This isn't marketting for Xbox 2 or Halo. That's just a cover story for the real thing being marketted, which is Windows, IIS,.Net, etc.
The site is being hosted on a RedHat Server running Apache. They are trying to imply that Linux/Apache servers are so easy to hack that some sort of new insect lifeform or something, with no knowledge of the internet can easily hack into it.
So how do the geekiest of geeks that don't like to go out, find clients, maintain those types of relationships make money? Easy, they make a website for their project, hope people help with it. And if anyone winds up making a bunch of money using their products, they can hope the other people donate money to them.
Nothing like working really hard for something then litterally begging for donations.
We see this all the time... even on here. Someone sais they're going to be using a product and people complain their not donating any money, or they say they hope they donate some money. I just imagine a whole commune of little stallman lemmings with a sign that says "Will code for food".
What's wrong with the economics of, I make something good, I expect people that want to use it will pay me for it. Or maybe I make good stuff maybe someone would pay me to make something good for them. As opposed to lets make free stuff, encourage everyone to make free stuff. We charge for free stuff but it's free because you can wave a big FSF flag over it and even though you paid for it you can give it away to people without paying me anything.
Free software should be like any other thing. If I buy a hammer I can lend it to someone. I can use it to biuld my house then later on use it to build a table for a friend.. The cost of the hammer should reflect the cost of manufacture, marketing, overhead, etc that goes into making that hammer, distributing it and a good amount of profit.
Not enough people seem to know enough about the FSF, RMS and the GPL. If you look back, Emacs, the once pride and joy of the FSF, was available for download, but you could also buy a copy for 150 for a bunch of disks. RMS doesn't get paid by the FSF but he doesn't mind living on college campuses where he teaches or studied. He also occasionally gets big cash awards but not every coder can get that. Also, look at the history of how emacs/xemacs was forked. There was a lot of cash involved in that transaction and the only person that had any freedom as to how the development was going to go wasn't the company shelling out all that money, it was RMS.
In the real world, you have to make compromises. WHy shouldn't a software developer be able to make a good living developing software? Eventually I think things are going to settle down to more of the BSD style licenses, things between GPL and proprietary.
The FSF has been holding firmly to their beliefs for a long time, taking too much of a radical approach. Fanatical really. There's also a whole chorus of people talking it up that don't even know what it's all about.
When you hear of successful projects you hear how they are supported by big companies. What's wrong with wanting to be self sufficient?
"Maybe the Opteron thing will work. But I don't see Dell etc just standing by if Sun makes good money from it. "
My money's on Sun over Dell in the AMD market. I have a feeling AMD's are going to be seeing more linux and solaris than windows. When you want support for that, do you want tech support for those OS's I think more people would trust Sun over Dell.
Their N1 provisioning stuff should be coming out around the same time as those boxes. SHould be an interesting combination for corporate data centers and hosting companies.
Sun thinks of the Enterprise too much. They're a small company and need to worry about their focus but I'd like to see them promoting their iforce partners more and helping to build a bigger SMB base.
I don't go around telling everyone I'm an artist and that's why I am better than everyone else. If I didn't have to try and counter someone's argument those words would have never come out. Trust me, if anything I'm very critical of myself and anything good I say about me or my work is usually something I'm quoting from someone else regarding it. Maybe it's that insecurity that drives me to try and make the best possible print I can, coupled with the pride I take in my work.
If I don't think a client is a good fit for me I'm happy to let them know that. This is a very subjective thing and if you come to me because you like one thing I do but want me to do 20 other things differently then that's not a good fit. I feel I need to have a certain level of creative control over the project. I try and be flexible but if things aren't in the niche I'm trying to fill then I don't think I'll do a good job so I'll encourage them to find someone that's a better fit. They way I do things works for me, if you don't like the way I do things don't try and get me to do them your way.
It isn't derrogatory. I don't go calling other photographers and telling them this is a cheap client that doesn't know quality. There definition of quality is different than mine. Their aesthetic judgments may be different as well.
"That's no reason to get a superiority complex. So, you produce something that some people want. Good for you. Keep it up, and best of luck to you. But your product isn't for everyone, and that's okay."
That's what I've been saying. I don't try to push my services down someone's throat.
"and yet you seem to have an elitist attitude yourself over people who choose to pay less."
I think you missunderstood. I don't have a problem with people paying less. What I do, I do because I enjoy it and I look for people that appreciate what I do and are willing to pay for it. To do things cheaper I'd have to change a lot of things that would take away some of my enjoyment of it. My enjoyment of it is what helps me get the results I get.
As far as my elitist comment, I don't think it's elitist when you think about the work I'm trying to do. Let me show you an example. This is a peice by one of my favorite wedding photographers, Paolo Cardone. In that example I don't think it's hard to see what I'm talking about. Where the people in the photo dissapear and all you see is a great photo. Obviously, it's even more special to the people in the photo though.
I'm not saying I'm as good as Paolo, but that's my goal.
I do get people though that tell me, they want my service but they want it at someone else's price. That person does things differently, I wouldn't even be earning minimum wage if I did it at that price. If I did things in such a way that it would be a good business decision to pick up that job, the results wouldn't be as good because that's not what I do. As you can see on this thread, some people really become hostile. You think I'm being elitist, I feel I'm only trying to defend myself against that.
I had this one woman really tear me a new one after finding out what my pricing was for some portraits of her. Telling me, this guy charges this much, this one charges even less and gives me a cd, etc. So I asked why she was spending so much energy and frustration on me. She said it was because she thought I was better. Regardless of how I do things differently, should I be expected to make more than someone if I'm better than them? Anyway, she went with some other guy. Wasn't happy with the results, came back to me, wound up spending more on prints than she originally said and was very happy.
A lot of the people I photograph really get emotional over my work, they laugh, they cry, and in cases it really makes them feel better about themselves. I work hard to get that kind of reaction. I'm not trying to sound cocky, it's not something I feel just happens beca
If you're not familiar with the US Copyright laws, have a look at the part that relates to work made for hire here. I don't see how you make the conclusions you do based on what the US law specifies.
The way I conduct my business is a bit different. I don't have a package that includes prints. What you are paying for initially is pretty much just having me come to your wedding with my gear and crew. You do so because you've seen examples of my work and like my style. I let you have some input into some of the types of formal photos you want but the majority of everything I do is a result of my creativity and ability to capture what's going on as it happens. After that, you get to see the online proofs and decide if you want to buy any. There is no requirement to buy any. My "product" is the prints, but to be able to make those prints you pay for me to come to your wedding and take photos. The agreement I pretty much make is that you contract me to take photos and then sell prints to you and your guests. I do this so I can be flexible with my pricing. If there's something you don't want, you don't have to pay for it. There are other photographers I've seen online that have a la carte pricing as well. I try and be fair but I also explain things to my clients so that they don't expect to pay only enough to cover my time shooting and developing their wedding photos and then get everything. You want to pay me to shoot and develop and then you want to buy all the negs, we can work something out but you're probably better off going with someone else if you're not going to get any prints from me (unless I'm shooting digitally which isn't my niche).
"Simply put, this guy was being misleading at best. He has no copyright to sell you that wasn't explicitly assigned to him by the contract he insists on. "
You have it backwards.
Under the 1976 Copyright Act as amended (title 17 of the United States Code), a work is protected by copyright from the time it is created in a fixed form. In other words, when a work is written down or otherwise set into tangible form, the copyright immediately becomes the property of the author who created it.
Further down...
If a work is created by an employee, part 1 of the statutory definition applies, and generally the work would be considered a work made for hire. IMPORTANT: The term"employee" here is not really the same as the common understanding of the term; for copyright purposes, it means an employee under the general common law of agency. This is explained in further detail below. Please read about this at "Employer-Employee Relationship Under Agency Law." If a work is created by an independent contractor (that is, someone who is not an employee under the general common law of agency), then the work is a specially ordered or commissioned work, and part 2 of the statutory definition applies. Such a work can be a work made for hire only if both of the following conditions are met: (1) it comes within one of the nine categories of works listed in part 2 of the definition and (2) there is a written agreement between the parties specifying that the work is a work made for hire.
A photographer is an independant contractor and both parties have to agree in the contract that it is a "work made for hire". Otherwise it's not automatically work for hire.
Okay, so I shouldn't defend myself against people that think the equipment does all the work and that my experience and creativity add little if anything to the final product.
Once I had someone that didn't understand how/why I charged so much for my prints. So I invited them into my darkroom to watch me make a print. I went through my regular process as quickly as I could explaining each step and how and why I did it. As they saw how the print progressed from the work prints to the final print they had a better appreciation for what I did. Even more so when I let them have at it themselves with my guidance.
It's like speakers. If you go to a home theater store and listen to different speakers ranging in price from low to extremely high and compare them, you'll notice a distinct difference and understand why the $600 speakers cost more than the $60 speakers. It's up to you to decide if that difference is worth the price. If you can't tell the difference go with the ones that will look nice in your place. Just don't make elitist claims over the people that can tell the difference and are willing to pay for it. If it's not for you it's not for you.
I tend to agree though that there are a lot of people that get into photography and let the equipment do all the work. I can kinda see the work for hire argument being applied to some of them.
"I have to agree with the argument that the wedding photographer copyright thing is scummy. It's your event, you've paid a photographer to attend and work for a couple days, you've given him exclusive rights to photograph your wedding, and now he's claimed that you're paying not for his work, but for his results..."
I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know anyone that claims they are charging for their work and not their results. I tell my clients specifically what their paying for. As you've stated you've haven't done this before and I can't see how you can make the claim what a photographer is claiming.
"of course if the results are unacceptable, the argument would be that you've paid for his work... "
I'm trying to find a polite way to respond to this. You obviously have no idea what it takes to make a good photograph. You're not even acknowledging that it's "work" unless the photographer has to correct his mistake. You have no appreciation for the amount of creativity and effort it takes be a photographer. Trust me, the camera doesn't do even 1/4 of the work, no matter how good it is. Then when it comes time to printmaking, there's an art to that.
I was trying to explain to a client once why my prints are so much more expensive than going to walmart or something like that. I gave him a negative that I had printed before. Told him to go get it printed then come back and compare it with one I've already printed. If he didn't see a difference to justify the price he was better off going with another photographer that would be cheaper. I obviously can't do that with everyone but I do sometimes show people what a straight machine print (a good one) looks like compared to a custom made print.
I don't know why photographers are singled out in this. The law applies to all artists, including writers. Why some writers are willing to sell all writes to their work for as little as a couple of bucks a word for even simple ad copy is beyond me.
I guess the reason their being punished is because they were invading other people's privacy. It's one thing to break into a system to prove it isn't secure for an article, it's another to look at other people's conversations and otherwise invade their privacy, but... it does put one hell of an exclamation point on the matter.
This reminds me of an incident a few years ago when companies were just putting sensitive information online. A financial institution (one of the bi ones you'd see on tv) had an online system. I was a customer and just really getting into building the same types of applications myself. So I took a little peek to see how secure their site was. Within seconds, I was able to pull up other customers financial information.
I sent an email to them to tell them about the vulnerability and what type of information I was able to pull up.
No response.
A few days later I had a look and was a bit ticked off that they didn't fix this simple exploit that is easy to fix. So I decided to pull up other customer's information. At least a dozen of samples or more. I pasted them in another email along with how I was able to obtain the information.
The next day I got a call from someone letting me know they got the email and had corrected the problem. He didn't sound too happy.
I was never concerned about being prosecuted because I didn't have to go out of my way and download any software to do it. Just copy, paste and make some changes in the url before going back to the site was all I needed.
Though there's nothing like that feeling the first time you're able to exploit someone's insecure code and you get to see their/etc/passwd file in your browser. Now that's a beautiful site. Can probably still do it based on the lack experience some people hhave that are making web apps today. Though, most systems probabl use shadow passwords these days.
"Anyone can walk into a Wal-Mart (and I happen to know their labs are well-maintained and keep *precise* process control) and get an 8x10 or nice full-frame bordered 8x12 of any negative for a nominal fee."
The way you print a negative will make a big difference when it comes to the final quality.
With machine printing, there are some things you can control. Primarily, overall density and color balance. With digital minilabs you have some control over contrast as well. In addition, the quality of the paper makes a big difference. Some types of film work better with certain types of paper. With most minilabs, you don't have too much control over cropping and rotation. The quality of the operator makes a difference as well.
With a custom color print I can match the paper with the negative I'm trying to print. I have the same controls over overall density and color balance. I have more control over cropping and rotating. Minilabs will generally pick a density and color balance setting based on the overall scene, I can more acurately fine tune that. Sometimes it might be better to have it a little darker or lighter. In addition, I can choose to manipulate the density locally by dodging and burning certain areas, making them lighter or darker in just certain areas of the print.
In black and white custom printing, you have the same controls as in custom color except you have more control over the contrast of the print. There are two main types of paper you can print on and the type many people find to be more aestetically pleasing doesn't work well in an automated feed system and needs to be tray processed, then archivally washed for a long time so that it can last.
Basically, there are a lot of things you can do in the printing stage that give a print more life. These are all subjective judgements and they take some experimentation before you can make the final print.
For a good idea of what it takes to make a fine art black and white print have a look at this page for an example.
"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."
When I do digital work I sometimes do the same thing, I give them a CD with edited images. With 20GB of images, you can't go through each one and make it perfect. You can do a pretty good job though. I try and make them as good as a can in a reasonable amount of time. When it's time to order prints I'll work on the ones that I know the client likes to make them even better. Instead of spending, lets say 30 hours retouching all the photos, of which a majority will never hit paper, I'll maybe spend 10 hours retouching them, then 20 hours giving extra special attention to the ones I know the client wants.
Like I've said in other posts, I'm not against giving more rights to the client as long as I feel rightly compensated for those rights, what I don't want is to give up all my rights. I think the point is unfairly argued, you shouldn't demand copyright from the photographer but instead be able to get negotiate extended usage rights while the photographer maintains the copyright.
My point is this, you want to be able to make a copy of it 25 years from now without coming back to me and paying for me to make you a copy, we can work that out, legally I own the copyright so in 10 years or so if I want to make a coffee table book of some of my favorite wedding photos, I want to display some of my prints in a gallery, I want to have them published in a magazine, I want to just make it for myself because I love the image so much, I want to keep the rights to that.
Like I said somewhere else. The printing process is one of my favorite aspects. I'll sometimes spend weeks redoing a certain image over and over trying to get it to be just right. At the end, I make sure I have an extra copy to send to the client. That's not something someone can just pay me for. It has to come from within me to want to do that. Well I guess you could pay me for it but you'd have to pay a lot for it. Maybe it's something I wind up selling for a few hundred bucks to some of the people that buy my other work. The client wins, they get a special photo from a special day in their lives, I hopefully get a some money to cover the time I spent making them as well as the satisfaction of the final result.
I'm not trying to be an asshole about it. I want to work it out in a way that I can put the amount of effort into each final print that I can by doing it at a pace that gives me the freedom and making enough money to make it all worth it for me. You may not agree with that. If I can't find enough people to agree with it I'll go back to concentrating mainly on my own personal projects.
"I'm starting to think that what *I* am saying is a difficult concept for you."
Likewise.
"I never mentioned GPL software nor assigning copyright to the FSF."
No, I did by saying "So curiously, you[not meaning you literaly] write GPL'd code, you relinquish your copyright to the FSF (as they reccommend) so that if there's any conflict they can litigate for you. You didn't get paid, you don't retain the copyright"
To which you responded "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."
If you weren't responding to my comment I have no idea what you were talking about. In general, no you don't relinquish copyright for open source software, with the GPL however, RMS wants you to assign the copyright to the FSF.
"The point is, the distinction between your high artistic impression of your work is no different than the way most programmers feel about theirs."
Which is why some programmers will make 40k a year working for someone and other will make $200 hour working for themselves. Ok it's harder now with outsoucing but not impossible. It's just no longer a given.
"Which naturally raises the question as to why people like photographers can get away with being paid to do work (which I have no problem with) - and yet blithely refuse to sign over the copyright to their patrons; while such a transfer is implicit in most employment contracts for developers."
You're obviously not getting my point. According to the copyright law of 1976, the artist who creates a peice of work owns it. What you get is a copy of the work and first rights to it for a year. This has everything to do with price. What I'm saying is that I have a price for my a shoot and prints, if you want more rights than you get at that base price, then you pay more for it because it precludes me from earning any more income from that work so I expect you to pay what that work would earn me if I didn't give up the rights. Instead of being a prick and not giving you the choice and instead just charging everyone a higher price, I offer a lower price and give people that want it the option to pay for it.
In software terms, think of it this way. You're contracted to build an application for a company. The contract states the become the copyright holder of all work produced. It's a fairly complex project and you write some libraries to make developing easier.
Later on, you get another project for a different market. Lets say these libraries you wrote for the other project are just simple methods to make database access easier and simpler. You want to use the same libraries for this project. You can't though. You don't have the right to do so. You're no longer the owner. You can recreate it but you're still probably violating the copyrights you signed away. So legally, you need to come up with it again. This adds to the complexity of the project.
Just to reiterate, you pay a fee that is subsidized by potential revenues on the work. If you don't want that, you make up the difference.
To give you a little more insight in how I work, If someone has been a good client to me, I've made a good amount of money on reprints and I've made all the photos I want for myself I'll come up with really favorable terms if they want the negatives. A big reason I got into this, is because I enjoy the darkroom work. So from time to time, I'll make prints for myself. If I'm really proud of the result I'll make an extra copy for the client and give it to them.
I'm always wondering what the real motivation for IBM's investment was.
Are they pushing more for SuSE on IBM over RedHat, is this going to be another big blow for RHAT?
Why didn't they just buy SuSE directly? Was having a lapdog buy it sheild them from any forms of criticism? Antitrust issues? Or maybe their licensing of unix would prevent them from buying it?
Did they help Novell buy SuSE to keep Sun from buying it? Or did they do so to give Sun a hard time with their Java Desktop System which runs on a modified SuSE?
I don't think it's safe to assume that IBM has completely cleaned up it's act since the 80's and people should be giving a close look to some things it does no matter how many lines of code they contribute to the linux kernel. Whether it turns up to be nothing or not, big companies should be watched and not given a blank check to do whatever they want because their "open source friendly"
"You said it yourself; the customer is buying your work. It should be theirs. You poured your soul into it, and then you sold it to them."
What I sell is the prints. I make that very clear. There are instances where I sell the rights or certain rights but I do that for appropriate consideration.
"In 50 years when you're dead, and your customer wants a fresh set of prints from their wedding, if they have the negatives they're fine."
If they have the negatives, they're still going to have to find someone to make a print like the one I made. They're going to have to pay for a custom printer to make it. Why pay the custom printer as opposed to me (that makes custom prints)? It's much easier for them to make a copy of the print I already made. There are some prints that take me hours or even days to get just the way I want them. You can't always just get that from sticking the negative in a machine and pressing a button.
While I do argue about owning the intermediate work, after a set period of time, after I've gotten my reprint orders and have made all the prints I want for my portfolio or other use, I do negotiate giving the negatives to the client. With digital, I will sometimes give them files with resolution capable of making prints but I charge enough to make that worth my while. 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.
If you hire a caterer, they're not obliged to give you the recipe, share their supplier's contact info, etc. 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? The product is the prints, the negatives are just a way to get there.
What I don't understand is why this bothers people so much. There are enough photographers doing it enough different ways that you have plenty of options to choose from. The people that come to me, want me and agree with my terms. I think my time is worth X amount of dollars and reflect that in my pricing. I try to make my services more affordable to you by trying to offset the costs by making some more money off of reprints from others also so they can see the quality of my final product (the print). If you don't want me to do that, I'm happy to charge you extra to make up for that. If you don't think my services are worth what I'm charging your free to find someone else. 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 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 order to make sure that all of our copyrights can meet the recordkeeping and other requirements of registration, and in order to be able to enforce the GPL most effectively, FSF requires that each author of code incorporated in FSF projects provide a copyright assignment, and, where appropriate, a disclaimer of any work-for-hire ownership claims by the programmer's employer. That way we can be sure that all the code in FSF projects is free code, whose freedom we can most effectively protect, and therefore on which other developers can completely rely.
"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."
Because you have explicitly agreed to those terms. I've done work where I haven't relinquished copyright because the client didn't want to pay a fair "work for hire" rate. We negotiated other terms, they paid a lower rate, they were happy, I was able to use the software for other clients. I generally retain the copyright in certain types of projects and assign the client a right to use, sometimes with source.
"I still don't get why it has to be different with photography."
It's not different. It's just that the majority of software work is work for hire. There are a lot of salaried photographers that work under similar terms. Basically it boils down to a photographer has to make ZZZZZ for a job to be profitable. They split it in XXXX upfront costs and YYYY reprint costs. If they don't make the YYYY the upfront costs now become XXXX+YYYY and you have to deal with the hassle of getting reprints for relatives and guests that ask for them.
"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."
Yes your paying me for my view of your wedding but in the form of an album and prints. You own the prints and albums. You want to burn them, feel free. You want to copy them and distribute them without asking and getting permission that's another matter. When you hire someone to write a book for you, do you have the write to all the intermediate steps? the research? the little notes on cocktail napkins? the crumpled pile of work that didn't make it sitting in the corner? Also keep in mind with books, distribution is negotiated seperately in many cases.
"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."
Contractor, true but you don't have the right to make replicas of his design. Portrait painter, yes you get the frame but you still don't have the right to reproduce it. Software, sometimes they do, but the big issue is, when you buy prepackaged software you don't. You pay less for it. What people want is the cheaper solution with the benefits of the higher priced one. This isn't like software, I can't make it up in "support services". Even with software I don't want to make it up in support. I like developing and not supporting, would rather make my money doing what I like, not what I have to do to be able to do what I like.
"So why when we hire a photographer he leaves with the pictures!"
No, he doesn't leave with the pictures, you get the
There was an article (that I don't have time to find right now) about how MS is expanding it's Patent portfolio. Since they need to keep up their rapid pace of growth, they are planning on taking a hint fro IBM and the billion dollars a year they make from their patents.
"The issue is that when you're a developer for hire for a company, in virtually all instances you relinquish copyright to your code to the person who hired you."
If you notice, in your employment contract, it either specifies this or it doesn't or it specifies the oposite or maybe something in between.
So curiously, you write GPL'd code, you relinquish your copyright to the FSF (as they reccommend) so that if there's any conflict they can litigate for you. You didn't get paid, you don't retain the copyright... Hmmm.. Maybe this is why this is such a difficult concept for some of you.
When I write software at work and I'm paid by salary, I get paid for a regular period of time, whether I'm coding, researching, testing, etc. They pay a good portion of my benefits and provide me with other necesities so that I don't worry about them, phone, desk, lights, ac, heat, etc.
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.
"You do realise that anyother humanbeing does NOT see a photographer at a wedding as an artist"
Some people do, some people don't. Some people also don't know the difference between a really good steak house and Outback, some people are content having all their meals come in little paper boxes. Some people can also appreciate all different forms of satisfying their hunger. People have different tastes.
"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."
I'm all for this. Some work I do I bill an hourly rate for all the time involved plus expenses. Considering a typical wedding will take about 80-100 hours of time and I consider a decent work for hire rate at LEAST $50-80/hr or more sign me up.
When people ask for copyright I quote them a fair market value. If you don't think my time and services are worth that, find someone else. There are plenty of people to chose from.
"I know there is an ancient SCO relationship, but not one that would indicate they support the current regime or direction over there, correct?"
Actually this is quite funny in my opinion. Back in they Digital Research's DR DOS had a rough time with Microsoft and IBM teaming up to kill it by charging $240 to put it on IBM PC's while Microsoft's DOS was being sold for $40. Novell bought Digital Research and at some later point Ray Noorda formed Caldera. He bought the rights to DR DOS for the purpose of pursuing a lawsuit against Microsoft for how they were unfairly priced. They won.
Years later, Caldera/SCO become one. SCO buys the rights to Unix from Novell. Sues IBM and others over Linux. At some point IBM gives $50million to Novell, for what purpose I'm not sure but they buy SuSE.
Why I find this musing (as a summary for those that have the attention span of a fruit fly) First scenario, key players, Caldera, Novell, IBM, Microsoft and a ass load of attorneys. Second scenario, key payers, SCO(Caldera) Novell, IBM, Microsoft and an ass load of attorneys.
I can go into a private establishment, take a picture of someone without their permission and still retain the copyright as long as i'm not breaking any laws and in many cases even if I am breaking a law.
What I don't have is the right to use the image in certain commercial purposes. Think of hidden cameras on the news. The person isn't even aware that they are photographed and they don't have to sign a release for it to be seen (though they sometimes have to blur the likeness) because it's for editorial use.
I can even break into your house, take pictures of you sleeping in your BVD's and publish the photos in the NY Times along with a story about how easy it is to break into most people's homes. What I can't do is try and use the photo to sell BVD's. I can even legally sell my copyright to BVD as long as I let them know I don't have a release. They probably wouldn't buy it though.
As a semi-pro photographer, let me give you my take on this.
Firstly, as far as creative control... You wouldn't realize how much of the quality of a print comes from the actual printing process. I maintain a full color and black and white darkroom as well as do digital work with labs I've used in the past. A great image needs careful printing to become a great print. Since most business is booked via word of mouth, you don't want someone showing some cheesy ink jet print off. Your paying for the time it takes to make that print, the test prints, the times i have to stop and just stare at it trying to decide what wil make it really sing. You're paying for an artist to capture the moments and present them as best they can. You can get all the same songs a dj will play and some stereo system to play it through but it won't be the same.
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. While I'm a fairly cynical and sarcastic jerk I do have a love of people and emotions and try and catch people through the rose colored glasses that sometimes fall on my head.
You're not buying a picture of yourself, you're buying how I saw you, wanted to see you for that moment. It takes a lot of time, effort and dedication to be able to do that in some cases though there are more standard type shooters. People sometimes ask me why I have so few photos of myself. The answer is, well i'm behind the camera:) But my private answer which I feel sounds too conceited is that I"m in every photo I take. I worked hard to take it, I worked hard to print it and it's very personal to me.
There are lots of people that will give you all the negatives, cd,s prints etc at the end of the session, some of these people are quite good, others are just your generic shooter trying to accomodate the new demand for such. Prices vary widely for each.
In addition to weddings, I also do a fair amount of intimate type portraiture. Same deal applies, copyright is mine and it's my work. I've photographed all kinds of women from really hot models to women you might not even give a second look at and they've always been very happy with the results, some brought to tears when they see the photos. Even women that have gone to other photographers. I guess there are photographic technicians and there are photographic artists. My desire is to be the latter. Just like there are system integrators and developers... some people have a passion to create not just replicate.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is find a photographer who you like and see what you can work out. Do you really need 1000 negs of your wedding? If so find someone that will give them to you. A lot of photographers will be somewhat accomodating.
The big issue isn't so much owning the copyrights but having the rights to reproduce. I would never give up my copyrights but I do sometimes make arrangements in regards to reproduction.
On another note, keep in mind, this person has to pay his expenses, (eqiupment, rent, insurance, assistants, accountants, lawers, etc.) There is a lot of work that goes into a wedding from the consultations to the shooting, to the final output. If you want someone to show up, get paid for the day, give you the film or cd at the end of the day and be done with you you can find those people as well.
"Seriously, rarely have OSes succeeded when one of their main benefits was running another OS's software"
Funny, linux seemed to benefit from being able to run Solaris binaries before some big ISV's started porting/writing applications specifically for linux.
Slashdot Mirror
The site is being hosted on a RedHat Server running Apache. They are trying to imply that Linux/Apache servers are so easy to hack that some sort of new insect lifeform or something, with no knowledge of the internet can easily hack into it.
Nice try but we know where the real worms live :)
Nothing like working really hard for something then litterally begging for donations.
We see this all the time... even on here. Someone sais they're going to be using a product and people complain their not donating any money, or they say they hope they donate some money. I just imagine a whole commune of little stallman lemmings with a sign that says "Will code for food".
What's wrong with the economics of, I make something good, I expect people that want to use it will pay me for it. Or maybe I make good stuff maybe someone would pay me to make something good for them. As opposed to lets make free stuff, encourage everyone to make free stuff. We charge for free stuff but it's free because you can wave a big FSF flag over it and even though you paid for it you can give it away to people without paying me anything.
Free software should be like any other thing. If I buy a hammer I can lend it to someone. I can use it to biuld my house then later on use it to build a table for a friend.. The cost of the hammer should reflect the cost of manufacture, marketing, overhead, etc that goes into making that hammer, distributing it and a good amount of profit.
Not enough people seem to know enough about the FSF, RMS and the GPL. If you look back, Emacs, the once pride and joy of the FSF, was available for download, but you could also buy a copy for 150 for a bunch of disks. RMS doesn't get paid by the FSF but he doesn't mind living on college campuses where he teaches or studied. He also occasionally gets big cash awards but not every coder can get that. Also, look at the history of how emacs/xemacs was forked. There was a lot of cash involved in that transaction and the only person that had any freedom as to how the development was going to go wasn't the company shelling out all that money, it was RMS.
In the real world, you have to make compromises. WHy shouldn't a software developer be able to make a good living developing software? Eventually I think things are going to settle down to more of the BSD style licenses, things between GPL and proprietary.
The FSF has been holding firmly to their beliefs for a long time, taking too much of a radical approach. Fanatical really. There's also a whole chorus of people talking it up that don't even know what it's all about.
When you hear of successful projects you hear how they are supported by big companies. What's wrong with wanting to be self sufficient?
My money's on Sun over Dell in the AMD market. I have a feeling AMD's are going to be seeing more linux and solaris than windows. When you want support for that, do you want tech support for those OS's I think more people would trust Sun over Dell.
Sun thinks of the Enterprise too much. They're a small company and need to worry about their focus but I'd like to see them promoting their iforce partners more and helping to build a bigger SMB base.
If I don't think a client is a good fit for me I'm happy to let them know that. This is a very subjective thing and if you come to me because you like one thing I do but want me to do 20 other things differently then that's not a good fit. I feel I need to have a certain level of creative control over the project. I try and be flexible but if things aren't in the niche I'm trying to fill then I don't think I'll do a good job so I'll encourage them to find someone that's a better fit. They way I do things works for me, if you don't like the way I do things don't try and get me to do them your way.
It isn't derrogatory. I don't go calling other photographers and telling them this is a cheap client that doesn't know quality. There definition of quality is different than mine. Their aesthetic judgments may be different as well.
"That's no reason to get a superiority complex. So, you produce something that some people want. Good for you. Keep it up, and best of luck to you. But your product isn't for everyone, and that's okay."
That's what I've been saying. I don't try to push my services down someone's throat. "and yet you seem to have an elitist attitude yourself over people who choose to pay less."
I think you missunderstood. I don't have a problem with people paying less. What I do, I do because I enjoy it and I look for people that appreciate what I do and are willing to pay for it. To do things cheaper I'd have to change a lot of things that would take away some of my enjoyment of it. My enjoyment of it is what helps me get the results I get.
As far as my elitist comment, I don't think it's elitist when you think about the work I'm trying to do. Let me show you an example. This is a peice by one of my favorite wedding photographers, Paolo Cardone. In that example I don't think it's hard to see what I'm talking about. Where the people in the photo dissapear and all you see is a great photo. Obviously, it's even more special to the people in the photo though.
I'm not saying I'm as good as Paolo, but that's my goal.
I do get people though that tell me, they want my service but they want it at someone else's price. That person does things differently, I wouldn't even be earning minimum wage if I did it at that price. If I did things in such a way that it would be a good business decision to pick up that job, the results wouldn't be as good because that's not what I do. As you can see on this thread, some people really become hostile. You think I'm being elitist, I feel I'm only trying to defend myself against that.
I had this one woman really tear me a new one after finding out what my pricing was for some portraits of her. Telling me, this guy charges this much, this one charges even less and gives me a cd, etc. So I asked why she was spending so much energy and frustration on me. She said it was because she thought I was better. Regardless of how I do things differently, should I be expected to make more than someone if I'm better than them? Anyway, she went with some other guy. Wasn't happy with the results, came back to me, wound up spending more on prints than she originally said and was very happy.
A lot of the people I photograph really get emotional over my work, they laugh, they cry, and in cases it really makes them feel better about themselves. I work hard to get that kind of reaction. I'm not trying to sound cocky, it's not something I feel just happens beca
The way I conduct my business is a bit different. I don't have a package that includes prints. What you are paying for initially is pretty much just having me come to your wedding with my gear and crew. You do so because you've seen examples of my work and like my style. I let you have some input into some of the types of formal photos you want but the majority of everything I do is a result of my creativity and ability to capture what's going on as it happens. After that, you get to see the online proofs and decide if you want to buy any. There is no requirement to buy any. My "product" is the prints, but to be able to make those prints you pay for me to come to your wedding and take photos. The agreement I pretty much make is that you contract me to take photos and then sell prints to you and your guests. I do this so I can be flexible with my pricing. If there's something you don't want, you don't have to pay for it. There are other photographers I've seen online that have a la carte pricing as well. I try and be fair but I also explain things to my clients so that they don't expect to pay only enough to cover my time shooting and developing their wedding photos and then get everything. You want to pay me to shoot and develop and then you want to buy all the negs, we can work something out but you're probably better off going with someone else if you're not going to get any prints from me (unless I'm shooting digitally which isn't my niche).
No idea about moral rights.
You have it backwards.
Further down... A photographer is an independant contractor and both parties have to agree in the contract that it is a "work made for hire". Otherwise it's not automatically work for hire.Once I had someone that didn't understand how/why I charged so much for my prints. So I invited them into my darkroom to watch me make a print. I went through my regular process as quickly as I could explaining each step and how and why I did it. As they saw how the print progressed from the work prints to the final print they had a better appreciation for what I did. Even more so when I let them have at it themselves with my guidance.
It's like speakers. If you go to a home theater store and listen to different speakers ranging in price from low to extremely high and compare them, you'll notice a distinct difference and understand why the $600 speakers cost more than the $60 speakers. It's up to you to decide if that difference is worth the price. If you can't tell the difference go with the ones that will look nice in your place. Just don't make elitist claims over the people that can tell the difference and are willing to pay for it. If it's not for you it's not for you.
I tend to agree though that there are a lot of people that get into photography and let the equipment do all the work. I can kinda see the work for hire argument being applied to some of them.
I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know anyone that claims they are charging for their work and not their results. I tell my clients specifically what their paying for. As you've stated you've haven't done this before and I can't see how you can make the claim what a photographer is claiming.
"of course if the results are unacceptable, the argument would be that you've paid for his work... "
I'm trying to find a polite way to respond to this. You obviously have no idea what it takes to make a good photograph. You're not even acknowledging that it's "work" unless the photographer has to correct his mistake. You have no appreciation for the amount of creativity and effort it takes be a photographer. Trust me, the camera doesn't do even 1/4 of the work, no matter how good it is. Then when it comes time to printmaking, there's an art to that.
I was trying to explain to a client once why my prints are so much more expensive than going to walmart or something like that. I gave him a negative that I had printed before. Told him to go get it printed then come back and compare it with one I've already printed. If he didn't see a difference to justify the price he was better off going with another photographer that would be cheaper. I obviously can't do that with everyone but I do sometimes show people what a straight machine print (a good one) looks like compared to a custom made print.
I don't know why photographers are singled out in this. The law applies to all artists, including writers. Why some writers are willing to sell all writes to their work for as little as a couple of bucks a word for even simple ad copy is beyond me.
This reminds me of an incident a few years ago when companies were just putting sensitive information online. A financial institution (one of the bi ones you'd see on tv) had an online system. I was a customer and just really getting into building the same types of applications myself. So I took a little peek to see how secure their site was. Within seconds, I was able to pull up other customers financial information.
I sent an email to them to tell them about the vulnerability and what type of information I was able to pull up.
No response.
A few days later I had a look and was a bit ticked off that they didn't fix this simple exploit that is easy to fix. So I decided to pull up other customer's information. At least a dozen of samples or more. I pasted them in another email along with how I was able to obtain the information.
The next day I got a call from someone letting me know they got the email and had corrected the problem. He didn't sound too happy.
I was never concerned about being prosecuted because I didn't have to go out of my way and download any software to do it. Just copy, paste and make some changes in the url before going back to the site was all I needed.
Though there's nothing like that feeling the first time you're able to exploit someone's insecure code and you get to see their /etc/passwd file in your browser. Now that's a beautiful site. Can probably still do it based on the lack experience some people hhave that are making web apps today. Though, most systems probabl use shadow passwords these days.
The way you print a negative will make a big difference when it comes to the final quality.
With machine printing, there are some things you can control. Primarily, overall density and color balance. With digital minilabs you have some control over contrast as well. In addition, the quality of the paper makes a big difference. Some types of film work better with certain types of paper. With most minilabs, you don't have too much control over cropping and rotation. The quality of the operator makes a difference as well.
With a custom color print I can match the paper with the negative I'm trying to print. I have the same controls over overall density and color balance. I have more control over cropping and rotating. Minilabs will generally pick a density and color balance setting based on the overall scene, I can more acurately fine tune that. Sometimes it might be better to have it a little darker or lighter. In addition, I can choose to manipulate the density locally by dodging and burning certain areas, making them lighter or darker in just certain areas of the print.
In black and white custom printing, you have the same controls as in custom color except you have more control over the contrast of the print. There are two main types of paper you can print on and the type many people find to be more aestetically pleasing doesn't work well in an automated feed system and needs to be tray processed, then archivally washed for a long time so that it can last.
Basically, there are a lot of things you can do in the printing stage that give a print more life. These are all subjective judgements and they take some experimentation before you can make the final print.
For a good idea of what it takes to make a fine art black and white print have a look at this page for an example.
When I do digital work I sometimes do the same thing, I give them a CD with edited images. With 20GB of images, you can't go through each one and make it perfect. You can do a pretty good job though. I try and make them as good as a can in a reasonable amount of time. When it's time to order prints I'll work on the ones that I know the client likes to make them even better. Instead of spending, lets say 30 hours retouching all the photos, of which a majority will never hit paper, I'll maybe spend 10 hours retouching them, then 20 hours giving extra special attention to the ones I know the client wants.
Like I've said in other posts, I'm not against giving more rights to the client as long as I feel rightly compensated for those rights, what I don't want is to give up all my rights. I think the point is unfairly argued, you shouldn't demand copyright from the photographer but instead be able to get negotiate extended usage rights while the photographer maintains the copyright.
My point is this, you want to be able to make a copy of it 25 years from now without coming back to me and paying for me to make you a copy, we can work that out, legally I own the copyright so in 10 years or so if I want to make a coffee table book of some of my favorite wedding photos, I want to display some of my prints in a gallery, I want to have them published in a magazine, I want to just make it for myself because I love the image so much, I want to keep the rights to that.
Like I said somewhere else. The printing process is one of my favorite aspects. I'll sometimes spend weeks redoing a certain image over and over trying to get it to be just right. At the end, I make sure I have an extra copy to send to the client. That's not something someone can just pay me for. It has to come from within me to want to do that. Well I guess you could pay me for it but you'd have to pay a lot for it. Maybe it's something I wind up selling for a few hundred bucks to some of the people that buy my other work. The client wins, they get a special photo from a special day in their lives, I hopefully get a some money to cover the time I spent making them as well as the satisfaction of the final result.
I'm not trying to be an asshole about it. I want to work it out in a way that I can put the amount of effort into each final print that I can by doing it at a pace that gives me the freedom and making enough money to make it all worth it for me. You may not agree with that. If I can't find enough people to agree with it I'll go back to concentrating mainly on my own personal projects.
Likewise.
"I never mentioned GPL software nor assigning copyright to the FSF."
No, I did by saying "So curiously, you[not meaning you literaly] write GPL'd code, you relinquish your copyright to the FSF (as they reccommend) so that if there's any conflict they can litigate for you. You didn't get paid, you don't retain the copyright"
To which you responded "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."
If you weren't responding to my comment I have no idea what you were talking about. In general, no you don't relinquish copyright for open source software, with the GPL however, RMS wants you to assign the copyright to the FSF.
"The point is, the distinction between your high artistic impression of your work is no different than the way most programmers feel about theirs."
Which is why some programmers will make 40k a year working for someone and other will make $200 hour working for themselves. Ok it's harder now with outsoucing but not impossible. It's just no longer a given.
"Which naturally raises the question as to why people like photographers can get away with being paid to do work (which I have no problem with) - and yet blithely refuse to sign over the copyright to their patrons; while such a transfer is implicit in most employment contracts for developers."
You're obviously not getting my point. According to the copyright law of 1976, the artist who creates a peice of work owns it. What you get is a copy of the work and first rights to it for a year. This has everything to do with price. What I'm saying is that I have a price for my a shoot and prints, if you want more rights than you get at that base price, then you pay more for it because it precludes me from earning any more income from that work so I expect you to pay what that work would earn me if I didn't give up the rights. Instead of being a prick and not giving you the choice and instead just charging everyone a higher price, I offer a lower price and give people that want it the option to pay for it.
In software terms, think of it this way. You're contracted to build an application for a company. The contract states the become the copyright holder of all work produced. It's a fairly complex project and you write some libraries to make developing easier.
Later on, you get another project for a different market. Lets say these libraries you wrote for the other project are just simple methods to make database access easier and simpler. You want to use the same libraries for this project. You can't though. You don't have the right to do so. You're no longer the owner. You can recreate it but you're still probably violating the copyrights you signed away. So legally, you need to come up with it again. This adds to the complexity of the project.
Just to reiterate, you pay a fee that is subsidized by potential revenues on the work. If you don't want that, you make up the difference.
To give you a little more insight in how I work, If someone has been a good client to me, I've made a good amount of money on reprints and I've made all the photos I want for myself I'll come up with really favorable terms if they want the negatives. A big reason I got into this, is because I enjoy the darkroom work. So from time to time, I'll make prints for myself. If I'm really proud of the result I'll make an extra copy for the client and give it to them.
Are they pushing more for SuSE on IBM over RedHat, is this going to be another big blow for RHAT?
Why didn't they just buy SuSE directly? Was having a lapdog buy it sheild them from any forms of criticism? Antitrust issues? Or maybe their licensing of unix would prevent them from buying it?
Did they help Novell buy SuSE to keep Sun from buying it? Or did they do so to give Sun a hard time with their Java Desktop System which runs on a modified SuSE?
I don't think it's safe to assume that IBM has completely cleaned up it's act since the 80's and people should be giving a close look to some things it does no matter how many lines of code they contribute to the linux kernel. Whether it turns up to be nothing or not, big companies should be watched and not given a blank check to do whatever they want because their "open source friendly"
What I sell is the prints. I make that very clear. There are instances where I sell the rights or certain rights but I do that for appropriate consideration.
"In 50 years when you're dead, and your customer wants a fresh set of prints from their wedding, if they have the negatives they're fine."
If they have the negatives, they're still going to have to find someone to make a print like the one I made. They're going to have to pay for a custom printer to make it. Why pay the custom printer as opposed to me (that makes custom prints)? It's much easier for them to make a copy of the print I already made. There are some prints that take me hours or even days to get just the way I want them. You can't always just get that from sticking the negative in a machine and pressing a button.
While I do argue about owning the intermediate work, after a set period of time, after I've gotten my reprint orders and have made all the prints I want for my portfolio or other use, I do negotiate giving the negatives to the client. With digital, I will sometimes give them files with resolution capable of making prints but I charge enough to make that worth my while. 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.
If you hire a caterer, they're not obliged to give you the recipe, share their supplier's contact info, etc. 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? The product is the prints, the negatives are just a way to get there.
What I don't understand is why this bothers people so much. There are enough photographers doing it enough different ways that you have plenty of options to choose from. The people that come to me, want me and agree with my terms. I think my time is worth X amount of dollars and reflect that in my pricing. I try to make my services more affordable to you by trying to offset the costs by making some more money off of reprints from others also so they can see the quality of my final product (the print). If you don't want me to do that, I'm happy to charge you extra to make up for that. If you don't think my services are worth what I'm charging your free to find someone else. 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 people should really spend more time getting to know what free software is all about. It is getting old seeing OSS advocates misquoting the GPL and other facts about OSS organizaitions. I suggest you read this page entitled Why the FSF gets copyright assignments from contributors
A quick excerpt:
"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."
Because you have explicitly agreed to those terms. I've done work where I haven't relinquished copyright because the client didn't want to pay a fair "work for hire" rate. We negotiated other terms, they paid a lower rate, they were happy, I was able to use the software for other clients. I generally retain the copyright in certain types of projects and assign the client a right to use, sometimes with source.
"I still don't get why it has to be different with photography."
It's not different. It's just that the majority of software work is work for hire. There are a lot of salaried photographers that work under similar terms. Basically it boils down to a photographer has to make ZZZZZ for a job to be profitable. They split it in XXXX upfront costs and YYYY reprint costs. If they don't make the YYYY the upfront costs now become XXXX+YYYY and you have to deal with the hassle of getting reprints for relatives and guests that ask for them.
"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."
Yes your paying me for my view of your wedding but in the form of an album and prints. You own the prints and albums. You want to burn them, feel free. You want to copy them and distribute them without asking and getting permission that's another matter. When you hire someone to write a book for you, do you have the write to all the intermediate steps? the research? the little notes on cocktail napkins? the crumpled pile of work that didn't make it sitting in the corner? Also keep in mind with books, distribution is negotiated seperately in many cases.
"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."
Contractor, true but you don't have the right to make replicas of his design. Portrait painter, yes you get the frame but you still don't have the right to reproduce it. Software, sometimes they do, but the big issue is, when you buy prepackaged software you don't. You pay less for it. What people want is the cheaper solution with the benefits of the higher priced one. This isn't like software, I can't make it up in "support services". Even with software I don't want to make it up in support. I like developing and not supporting, would rather make my money doing what I like, not what I have to do to be able to do what I like.
"So why when we hire a photographer he leaves with the pictures!"
No, he doesn't leave with the pictures, you get the
There was an article (that I don't have time to find right now) about how MS is expanding it's Patent portfolio. Since they need to keep up their rapid pace of growth, they are planning on taking a hint fro IBM and the billion dollars a year they make from their patents.
If you notice, in your employment contract, it either specifies this or it doesn't or it specifies the oposite or maybe something in between.
So curiously, you write GPL'd code, you relinquish your copyright to the FSF (as they reccommend) so that if there's any conflict they can litigate for you. You didn't get paid, you don't retain the copyright... Hmmm.. Maybe this is why this is such a difficult concept for some of you.
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.
You mean it's safe to come out of my bunker? Thank God! I'm sick of sustaining myself on spam, twinkies and tang.
Some people do, some people don't. Some people also don't know the difference between a really good steak house and Outback, some people are content having all their meals come in little paper boxes. Some people can also appreciate all different forms of satisfying their hunger. People have different tastes.
"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."
I'm all for this. Some work I do I bill an hourly rate for all the time involved plus expenses. Considering a typical wedding will take about 80-100 hours of time and I consider a decent work for hire rate at LEAST $50-80/hr or more sign me up.
When people ask for copyright I quote them a fair market value. If you don't think my time and services are worth that, find someone else. There are plenty of people to chose from.
Actually this is quite funny in my opinion. Back in they Digital Research's DR DOS had a rough time with Microsoft and IBM teaming up to kill it by charging $240 to put it on IBM PC's while Microsoft's DOS was being sold for $40. Novell bought Digital Research and at some later point Ray Noorda formed Caldera. He bought the rights to DR DOS for the purpose of pursuing a lawsuit against Microsoft for how they were unfairly priced. They won.
Years later, Caldera/SCO become one. SCO buys the rights to Unix from Novell. Sues IBM and others over Linux. At some point IBM gives $50million to Novell, for what purpose I'm not sure but they buy SuSE.
Why I find this musing (as a summary for those that have the attention span of a fruit fly) First scenario, key players, Caldera, Novell, IBM, Microsoft and a ass load of attorneys. Second scenario, key payers, SCO(Caldera) Novell, IBM, Microsoft and an ass load of attorneys.
What I don't have is the right to use the image in certain commercial purposes. Think of hidden cameras on the news. The person isn't even aware that they are photographed and they don't have to sign a release for it to be seen (though they sometimes have to blur the likeness) because it's for editorial use.
I can even break into your house, take pictures of you sleeping in your BVD's and publish the photos in the NY Times along with a story about how easy it is to break into most people's homes. What I can't do is try and use the photo to sell BVD's. I can even legally sell my copyright to BVD as long as I let them know I don't have a release. They probably wouldn't buy it though.
Firstly, as far as creative control... You wouldn't realize how much of the quality of a print comes from the actual printing process. I maintain a full color and black and white darkroom as well as do digital work with labs I've used in the past. A great image needs careful printing to become a great print. Since most business is booked via word of mouth, you don't want someone showing some cheesy ink jet print off. Your paying for the time it takes to make that print, the test prints, the times i have to stop and just stare at it trying to decide what wil make it really sing. You're paying for an artist to capture the moments and present them as best they can. You can get all the same songs a dj will play and some stereo system to play it through but it won't be the same.
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. While I'm a fairly cynical and sarcastic jerk I do have a love of people and emotions and try and catch people through the rose colored glasses that sometimes fall on my head.
You're not buying a picture of yourself, you're buying how I saw you, wanted to see you for that moment. It takes a lot of time, effort and dedication to be able to do that in some cases though there are more standard type shooters. People sometimes ask me why I have so few photos of myself. The answer is, well i'm behind the camera :) But my private answer which I feel sounds too conceited is that I"m in every photo I take. I worked hard to take it, I worked hard to print it and it's very personal to me.
There are lots of people that will give you all the negatives, cd,s prints etc at the end of the session, some of these people are quite good, others are just your generic shooter trying to accomodate the new demand for such. Prices vary widely for each.
In addition to weddings, I also do a fair amount of intimate type portraiture. Same deal applies, copyright is mine and it's my work. I've photographed all kinds of women from really hot models to women you might not even give a second look at and they've always been very happy with the results, some brought to tears when they see the photos. Even women that have gone to other photographers. I guess there are photographic technicians and there are photographic artists. My desire is to be the latter. Just like there are system integrators and developers... some people have a passion to create not just replicate.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is find a photographer who you like and see what you can work out. Do you really need 1000 negs of your wedding? If so find someone that will give them to you. A lot of photographers will be somewhat accomodating.
The big issue isn't so much owning the copyrights but having the rights to reproduce. I would never give up my copyrights but I do sometimes make arrangements in regards to reproduction.
On another note, keep in mind, this person has to pay his expenses, (eqiupment, rent, insurance, assistants, accountants, lawers, etc.) There is a lot of work that goes into a wedding from the consultations to the shooting, to the final output. If you want someone to show up, get paid for the day, give you the film or cd at the end of the day and be done with you you can find those people as well.
Funny, linux seemed to benefit from being able to run Solaris binaries before some big ISV's started porting/writing applications specifically for linux.