Archive for category Giving it away

Fool’s Gold – Part 2

And so, the story continues. 4. Does Their Pitch Make Sense? “You keep using that word, I do not think It means what you think it means”.  – says Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin) from the classic film, “The Princess Bride”. It is an invaluable phrase to call out someone’s incorrect use of a word, phrase or concept. Use of […]

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But I Own the Copyright!

We read a thread online about the “merits” of stock agencies. To us that could have been a one-sentence story, but we digress. In the comments section someone said how they owned the copyright and could pursue an infringer. Again, that falls into the category of “Ya didn’t read the fine print, didja?” We’ve seen […]

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Whitewashing a Fence

Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer whitewashing a fence yesterday and the Creative Commons doing it today.

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They Lie

For about the past 50 years or so the mantra spouted by mainstream media has been that, unlike say The National Enquirer,  “We don’t pay for news”. Typically this was the answer given to photographers (and others) who were in possession of timely and valuable images or footage which they want to sell or license. All […]

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The Tyranny of Numbers

We wish we thought of this title, but it’s the title of a book by David Boyle, and the title explains it all. It’s also a perfect title for this blog piece. (Lucky for us, titles are not copyrightable, but that’s for another blog piece). Numbers can be used in so many ways and for […]

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Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

There is a famous quote attributed to Mark Twain, who in turn erroneously attributed it himself to Benjamin Disraeli, which has been used by many,  and is absolutely one of our favorites. It goes: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”  This will be a blog article on statistics. Some in […]

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The Toilet Scrubbers Will Get Paid, But Not You

We ran across this great letter to a producer from a songwriter, NJ White in the UK, as to why he is not willing to give away his work to the producer for free.  The link is on Paul Resnikoff’s Digital Music News website. It’s a great read. Read it at this link or the […]

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Free Parking! But With a Catch

To post or not to post? That is the question. This was going to be a comment in reply to Damian in our “comments” area, but we decided it really warrants its own article.  Basically, the question is, “Just what rights do you give up in those social media Terms of Service (TOS) agreements”? To […]

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He Who Hesitates Has Lost

A skeleton walks into a doctor’s office. Doctor says, “Now you come to see me”? Those of you who have attended our seminars know that we advise, urge, stress, cajole, beg and even plead with photographers and models who are owed money by clients to get thee to a lawyer ASAP. There is no good […]

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Still Working For Free?

We have over three plus decades repeatedly written, urged, cajoled, screamed, advised, suggested and prodded members of the photography and illustration communities to never work for free.  There isn’t an argument or rationalization against that position that we haven’t heard a hundred times.  Now someone has made many of the same arguments that we have […]

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