selling prints/releasing digital files

Please don't take this as inflamatory. I'm completely intrigued by this thread and simply asking to get a better understanding...

Why is it a problem to "work for hire" and sign away rights when working for a magazine or other corporation? As a software consultant, this is very common in our contracts. Our clients get all of the software (including source files) we create while in their employ. Why is this profession different?

I'm not a pro (although I do shoot some stock for my wife's design company), but would like to get to the point where my developing skills allow my "hobby" to support itself through paid jobs.

Thanks for your comments.

Rob

pankmehta said:

then this number will show and I am sure that this
will spoil the photo.

Click to expand...

Talk about Customer Service!

(NOT)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeffrey Friedl -- Kyoto, Japan -- http://regex.info/blog/

Hi, I'm glad you took the time to ask and personally I think it's a pertinent question. Work for hire is sometimes confusing and often misunderstood. If you check out this link straight from the horses mouth http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf it gives the current state of the law. My take on work for hire is that if you work for a corporation and get benefits along with a regular paycheck creating a copywritable creation that the company is in the business of making for profit, the company has a right in acquiring sole ownership to make money off this thing. Where it gets a little murky is the question of what constitutes an employee - employer relationship. The important thing is that a work for hire has to be agreed to in writing before the fact. It's just like musicians signing away ownership of their songs. People always think what jerks the record companies are for taking advantage of them. Yet everybody thinks photogs are the jerks for standing up for their rights. The reason it's so important that individual artists retain the rights of ownership is because this is what supports them, and this is their art. Imagine W. Eugene Smith's life's work out of his and his heir's control. Or how about when Michael Jackson licensed the Beatles' "revolution" to Nike. I personally have never worked for a software manufacturer, but I would imagine you get paid decently and have some benefits, and don't have to provide your own equipment, and probably signed a contract stating the company owns all rights to works produced.
--
Harry

HP Photography said:

Hi, I'm glad you took the time to ask and personally I think it's a
pertinent question. Work for hire is sometimes confusing and often
misunderstood. If you check out this link straight from the horses
mouth http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf it gives the
current state of the law. My take on work for hire is that if you
work for a corporation and get benefits along with a regular
paycheck creating a copywritable creation that the company is in
the business of making for profit, the company has a right in
acquiring sole ownership to make money off this thing. Where it
gets a little murky is the question of what constitutes an employee

• employer relationship. The important thing is that a work for

hire has to be agreed to in writing before the fact. It's just like
musicians signing away ownership of their songs. People always
think what jerks the record companies are for taking advantage of
them. Yet everybody thinks photogs are the jerks for standing up
for their rights. The reason it's so important that individual
artists retain the rights of ownership is because this is what
supports them, and this is their art. Imagine W. Eugene Smith's
life's work out of his and his heir's control. Or how about when
Michael Jackson licensed the Beatles' "revolution" to Nike. I
personally have never worked for a software manufacturer, but I
would imagine you get paid decently and have some benefits, and
don't have to provide your own equipment, and probably signed a
contract stating the company owns all rights to works produced.
--
Harry

Click to expand...

Excellent reply Harry!
--
JCase
Case Photography
http://www.caseserve.com

so somebody will buy a print or series from you...what prevents them from scanning the print or taking their own digital shot of your 8x 10 to make their own copies? Won't be as good as printing the original file, but probably good enough for them. In the long run, I don't see how not supplying digital negs in the package can be avoided when asked for. Especially with many people having small format, fairly high quality home printers themselves. You can always refuse, but eventually digital archives will be demanded.

Many people want motion, DVD, music, presentations that the photos are only a part of. They want to resize, shuffle images, and composite. I think anybody that isn't thinking beyond the print on paper isn't really seeing where the digital world (including images) will finally converge.

If the photographer holds the "copyright" of the image, but cannot reproduce it for commercial gain without a release from the person photographed, and that person does not want to purchase prints from the photographer, nor grant a release, what's the point of holding the copyright? It's worthless.

All this talk about protecting the quality of the reproductions, art, reputation, credit, etc, etc., is in my opinion nothing but the simple desire for additional profits being couched in a lot of BS. If you're not happy with what you make on a shoot, raise your rates and deliver what the client wants.

Certainly everyone takes pride in their work. Photography, design, art, sculpture, painting are all kindred spirits. But, from the clients perspective when it comes to photography we deliver "pictures", nothing more, nothing less. Lest we not take ourselves to seriously, the client is paying the bills. Just my opinion, of course.

The solution: Deliver what the client wants. The best prints you can make. If they ask for digital negs, give them, but not your color corrected, retouched, print ready files --- keep those. When their prints don't turn out as good as yours, they'll come back to buy prints. If they don't, then they are not the quality type of customer you want anyway.

HP Photography said:

actually I'm trying to avoid giving out cds. The problem is that
I'm not sure how people avoid it.

Click to expand...

I'm in a different sector of photography. I do (mostly) aerial photos. I have basically defined 3 types of service that I provide my clients.

The first one is your basic "$85 for a 11x14 print of your house/farm" where I print the image on my Epson 2200, spray clear UV Krylon on it, and frame it. Then if the client wants low res digital files from that flight on a CD, I make 800x600 pixel files and charge about $5 per image. For the $85 price I shoot several jobs in the same trip to keep the cost down. Local flights only

The second service is $85 for aerial photos on a CD. One image of their choice is full res, and the rest are 800x600, and they have the option to pay extra for other full res images. Local flights only.

The third service is price negotiated per job according to the shots required and the flight costs. Prints and/or digital files are individually prices according to the resolution. I'll shoot anywhere they pay me to go.

My advice is to figure out what you can charge for CD's and make a profit. I don't worry a bit that somebody might use a crappy printer and get a bad print from a 800x600 file. They know they can call me up and i'll provide a decend print if they want it. Sell them whatever they want and have fun doing it.

First of all let me say I make the house payment with money I earn as a college instructor. But while not a "pro" I can perhaps be considered a semipro. I am the "official" photographer for a 2.25 mile road racing track and shoot a lot of SCCA and other motorsports events.

I know the arguments about quality control, not wanting cr@p out there attributed to you. But you are wrong if you think this is something you can control. You think it will hurt your rep when people ask who took the picture the customer had printed by some high school kid at WalMart? Wait until they see the shots the customer printed after scanning the one cheapest-size-offered print you sold him.

Copyright? Don't make me laugh. First, how will you ever even know? Furthermore, talk to some people you know that aren't familiar with the photo business. Ask them if it's against the law to scan prints they "paid good money for" and reprint them. You won't like the response.

Technology is changing a lot more about this business than what's inside your camera. Chemistry is my subject, not Biology, but I know Darwin had it right. Adapt or die.

Jerry

You are quite correct about copies of small proofs...it has been happening for years....and my old glossy proofs made it too easy....I now use matte finish...and I do get complaints occasionally...but that is still not the same as full res files.

With regard to your other comments.....so.....the pharmaceutical companies don't have a right to patent their medicines either I suppose?.... Just because there are companies that can make generics...the laws should be changed to accomodate what "can" be done? and...the music industry should lie down and give up because we have the ability to copy music and play it back? and the movie industry likewise? I am sure you have the ability with equipment you own today to copy both movies and music?

If you are saying that today's society is so immoral as to lack the control/ability/conscience to do what is right, when the temptation to do what is wrong is available, I sincerley hope you are wrong. I also hope you aren't teaching my child that she should do anything she can get away with in life. Perhaps Enron's executives studied the same set of ethics you are infering are now in control of our society.

The ability to steal, or rob from a bank, I hope does not result in everyone doing so. Let us hope that either the world figures out a way to better control the theft of authors' works....or we may find ourselves in a world with few incentives to become an author. Society suffers when this takes place.

If you study the French revolution...you will see that they also decided that copyright was unfair, and archaic. They did away with it. A few years later they reimplemented it as the ONLY stuff that was being produced without copyright protections....was pornography, and political tracts.

Ownership, and regulation of original material is what drives people to create...they want the financial gain...without it history has shown that new ideas and new authorship suffers.

As was mentioned by another poster.......as a self employed person....I have to provide for my own retirement...I have to hope the work I do will retain some value as that is my product. Hence the reason to maintain what control I can. I speak here as a stock shooter more than as a wedding photographer...and many on this forum are in the later catagory....

In the USA...if you create something while in the employ..."as in an employee of" of a company, and that creative process is in your job description, then the creation is the property of the employer. If you work for Studio ABZ as a photographer...they own the copyright to your images taken ON THE JOB. Same if you are a press photographer....and an employee of the newspaper. If your job description does NOT include creation of a specified type of content....then content you create outside your job hours, or your job description belongs to you, not your employer.

On the other hand....if you are "self-employed".....The governments have concluded that in order to encourage the rather dangerous/difficult practice of trying to invent/author/create outside of the financial security blanket of "employment"......that copyrights and patents are an incentive to many to try new and different things. As a side benefit, I am sure there is also some thought that you will be less of a drain on the Social Security system if you have a valuable library/commodity that you own and which might support you in your old age.

Photographers do not have the deep pockets that the music and movie industries have.....so we rarely are found sueing our clients for dupint out photos....would probably be bad for business anyway.....the other two industries are changing the way music and movies are sold, played, and purchased to reafirm their profits and viability.

Photography lags somewhat at the moment in these areas, but things are improving. Software advances, copyright protections and copy protections built into scanners, are both advancing as many in the software development industry realize that photographers need protection to keep our businesses viable.

Also, the Chinese ....noted for their history of ignoring copyrights, are currently trying to sue some western companies that are infringing on THEIR inventions...and they will likely within a few years begin to honor our patents if they want the west to pay to use the inventions they are now making. The more advanced a society becomes the more value it places on original thought and creativity.

What we as photographers need to do is NOT give up during this transition period. Tools are becoming available that are going to improve our profitability as long as we don't give up before they are implemented.
--
Richard Katris aka Chanan

I am with Richard here.

I am not as experienced as him, but my first year full time (4 years ago) taught me a thing or two.

1. Portrait customers buy photos to put on their wall, not hire a guy to take photos.

2. good portrait customers buy the prints they want, the ones who try to cheat you are easy to spot, they baulk at the price and ask for a full res cd (included in a cheap price, NOT willing to pay what its worth). I rarely get past a phone call with those.
3. you cant make a profit on the lowballers, let them go to the shopping center.

4. show proofs in the studio, preferably projected, when they ask you to put them on cd, the correct answer is NO (but marked contact print proofs are fine with an order or deposit)

5. RARELY will a retail portrait customer even want to buy the cd of images if they are of a price that will keep you in business. Most people would rather just buy nice prints.

6. How would you even charge for the files? A set rate? $500, $1000? I am cheap and not a hard salesman, I get between $300 to $1200 for a portrait session, If I charged a set rate I would limit my earnings potential and scare most clients away (who would normally spend more anyway)

7. You must charge for three things: your business expenses, your time and most importantly your intellectual property. If you dont value your intellectual property you might as well sign up at a temp agency and make a consistant $ hr

8. You dont have to give up on your copyright, you dont have to bend over for bad customers. You dont have to let printed proofs or cd proofs leave your studio without an order. You can sell packages where scanning is more likely (eg a large group photo where one buys an 8x10 and scans it far everyone else)

Going from pocket money type sessions to making a living type sessions is a big changeover usually. The ones who were happy to give you a bit of money for your time will probably not spend $500 with you.

You could sell your portrait session as a package including cd of all images but I think that is a harder sell than a nice print for the wall.

Of course, differing markets different strategies, this is just my experience.

all the best

a

Andrew said:

6. How would you even charge for the files? A set rate? $500,
$1000? I am cheap and not a hard salesman, I get between $300 to
$1200 for a portrait session, If I charged a set rate I would limit
my earnings potential and scare most clients away (who would
normally spend more anyway)

Click to expand...

Hi, good post, chock full of info as was Richard's. This thread should satisfy the guys over at the "is this really a pro forum" thread. This question is a bit off topic and I know it's illegal to openly discuss exact pricing, but could you explain how you structure your fee ($300 ~ $1200). Is it based on the customer, or package, or number of poses and changes of wardrobe, etc. I'm pretty new to dealing with individuals. With magazines it can be a real artform trying to get a decent rate without an agent.
--
Harry

My comments weren't about what is right and what is wrong. And if you think I said it's OK to scan and print copywritten photos, I must have done a poor job of expressing myself. As far as I'm concerned that is theft - pure and simple.

The problem is the majority of the populace doesn't see it the way we do. Sure, there are some that know it's wrong but it's a LOW risk crime, so they do it. But many more of them don't see it as a moral issue. Hey, they BOUGHT the photo! And why on earth would companies be able to sell scanners if it was illegal to use them?

Sure, we can try to educate them. I've tried. But I remember one night in poarticular I spent half an hour trying to explain it to some friends. At the end of that time I could see from the looks on their faces they thought I was nuts.

The free-wheeling, frontier days of the internet has only served to make things worse. Indeed, when we reprimanded a member of our local SCCA forum recently for the unauthorized use of copywritten material, his response was "IT'S THE INTERNET!"

So, back to my origional point. You can hide from what's going on or you find a way to still make a decent profit in a world that neither of us particulary care for.

Jerry

HP Photography said:

This question is a bit off topic and I know it's illegal to
openly discuss exact pricing, but could you explain how you
structure your fee ($300 ~ $1200). Is it based on the customer, or
package, or number of poses and changes of wardrobe, etc. I'm
pretty new to dealing with individuals. With magazines it can be a
real artform trying to get a decent rate without an agent.
--
Harry

Click to expand...

Hi Harry,

It is based mostly on print sales, but I have different session fees for different types of sessions, eg outdoor kids is very small session fee, extended family groups is a high session fee but includes some prints.

The thing to remember is that before they get their photos taken they have no attachment to them and they will factor price and overall cost into their choice, but when they see the proofs, the images have an emotional attachment to them and they will happily exceed their budget if they had one. This is not emotional blackmail, it is just how you sell a non essential wants based product. Its not like when your toilet backs up and you NEED a plumber for a couple of hours.

It sounds silly to me to tell a portrait customer "yeah, that will take a couple of hours to photograph you at $250 an hour to cover my time and talent" I am sure it sounds stupid to the customer too, think of it more like a girl buying a nice pair of shoes, "these have $30 worth of leather, took an illegal immigrant 2 hours to make and $200 for the designers talent" How about "think of how this will look on your wall (your feet in the case of the manolos) ",, Oh yeah thats lovely, gotta have it"

I just don't think it is as bad as it seems....the latest copyright law amendment that they are trying to push through however would be very bad.

I see WalMart refusing to copy images, I have Kinkos call me all the time asking for permission for one thing or another....I don't know if you are aware of it but KMart had a multimillion dollar settlement a year or two ago because they were allowing people to copy copyrighted photos. Years before that Olan Mills was averaging $55K per 60 minute photo establishment that was duping their proofs....word got out...and much of the industry is darn careful today. Sure we will lose some reprints to the home enthusiast, but the quality clients we want will still ask us to make the prints...at least the larger ones...which have more profit built in anyway.

If you look at the music industry.....sharing was going to kill them. they managed to turn that around to a very nifty download for a fee charge where the files cannot be loaded on additional devices..not sure how that works...but lets face it...when the mp3 player dies...I think they will have to pay again with the next one....absolutely phenomenal turn-around for the music folks......maybe they get less per song...but they get to charge it everytime they upgrade.....

I think that shortly software will be available that will more easily, and more cheaply allow for permanent marking of images in a non visible manner that will allow both web crawlers, potential users, or artists to access ownership information from used images...and then demand payment as appropriate for usage. What I am most concerned about is that in the meantime...many in photography might give up and allow further degradation of the markets before those abilities have been implemented...and that would be bad for the industry as a whole.

The whole "free" internet is slowly being replaced by for fee services...so in the long run....the potential to get paid will come back as long as we hold the line in the near term. Today I read where ISPs want to charge variable rates on throughput on the internet with a graduated charge depending on the speed/reliability of the connections.....they are working very hard to make it pay. I just think we need to not allow them to try to freeze us out of making some of that money as well.
--
Richard Katris aka Chanan

You know what they say. "Some see the glass half full, some see the glass half empty." I must confess my usual reaction is to point out the glass is dirty!

Perhaps it's the type of customers I deal with at races. The concern is usually whether or not I got THE shot - not the quality. If the biker has his knee dragging, if you caught the teammates bump drafting their Spec Miatas, if you got him passing his rival just at the finish line - that's usually all they care. I can't tell you how many times I seen prints from the thumbnails on my web site with a huge copyright across the cente. People that will print an 8.5 x 11 from a 450 x 300 file and then hang it on the shop wall aren't going to go for the "my prints are higher quality" line!

Anyway, I've enjoyed this and hope your optimism proves to be justified.

Jerry

Thanks for your response. I completely agree that as an "employee" of a company whatever work you create while an employee of the company is owned by the company. This is a standard in employee agreements whether in software development or elsewhere (possibly an over-statement, I believe generally true). I recently hired a guy who writes and sells software he writes and didn't want any future software developed on personal time to be owned by the company (imagine that!). Certainly reasonable and we "improved" our company's employee agreement.

My initial post referred to software consultants (I owned a software consulting firm for a number of years). We where explicitly NOT employees of the company (no benefits and billed hourly) yet it was (is) standard practice that all work developed on the client's time was owned by the client. In my mind this appears equal to being hired by a magazine to shoot yet, in this case, the photographer retains rights to the photograph. I’m assuming that the client pays a shooting fee and not by the photo. This would potentially change the discussion if they only paid by the photo. Of course your point is very valid that it all comes down to the contract you sign with the client. I certainly could have changed our consulting contract to allow us to keep ownership of the code. This simply wasn't standard practice in that industry.

It's certainly an interesting topic to a hobbyist and extremely important topic for the pros. I certainly appreciate the concerns raised and comments made in this thread.

Thanks.

Rob

The free-wheeling, frontier days of the internet has only served to make things worse. Indeed, when we reprimanded a member of our local SCCA forum recently for the unauthorized use of copywritten material, his response was "IT'S THE INTERNET!"

Right, it's different when he does it. People will crook from you with every chance you give them. Some folks where I work have approached me about 'copying this and that' and I wouldn't do it as I saw the PROOF written on the pix. They had seen my work with some photo restorations and suspected I could have gotten rid of the PROOF. But I didn't.

--
People want the best stuff and they want you to give it to 'em.

My wife almost got run over by a guy in his SUV back when we had that blackout. She was crossing the street at a stop sign and he just barreled through without pausing. She yelled at him that it was a stop sign and he actually stuck his head out and told her there was a blackout. Some people can't think beyond themselves, that doesn't make them right.
--
Harry

Question

If you printed a contact sheet in a PDF file would this not work and you wouldnt have the problem of them printing quality images off he disk?

lou Capeloto said:

Question

If you printed a contact sheet in a PDF file would this not work
and you wouldnt have the problem of them printing quality images
off he disk?

Click to expand...

Lou, That's a good idea but the ones asking for the images would probably balk at it. I may try it though.
--
JCase



http://www.CaseServe.com