A major national magazine simply appropriates several images shot by a semi-professional photographer “from a small town”. Photographer sees his/her work on the cover of the well-known supermarket magazine while paying for groceries.
Photographer contacts the Big City editor.
“What the heck? No one contacted me or asked me if you could use my shots and by the way how did you get my pix”?
Editor says, “No problem we will be sending you our standard form. Simply sign and return it to us and we are done”.
So the form goes to the photographer who upon reading it contacts Ed. Here’s the form with the name of the publication and other identifiers missing. The grammar or lack thereof is in the original. One final important note to remember while reading the “standard form” – the photographer and the magazine have never, ever done any business with each other before.
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Dear_______:
This is to simply re-state our policy consistent with long established industry practice regarding the rights and usage of photographs used on our cover and/or inside of our magazine. Once a photo has been selected for the magazine, in consideration of the applicable fee if any, we have the right to do customary editorial work to incorporate the photo into the cover.
Ownership of the photograph and the copyright of it remain with you unless a specific agreement to the contrary is reached between you and us. However we retain the right to use any photo on the cover of our magazine and reproduce the cover for any purpose in perpetuity without payment.
I am sure that you realize that this represents no change in policy, but we wanted to get it on paper. Please sign below and return this form to me as an acknowledgement of this policy and your acceptance of it.
We appreciate your contribution.
Dates/Signatures.
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Note:
- There was no “contribution” the image was stolen;
- The parties had no business relationship;
- Magazine had no intention of paying photographer and made the point clear ;
- Photographer keeps the copyright but magazine can use it in perpetuity for…wait for it…wait for it…free, forever.
All we can say is that there was a happy ending for the photographer who had registered the images.
#1 by Kevin E. Proulx on April 29, 2015 - 11:45 am
Sounds all-too familiar. My situation was with a major late-night network television show using one of my photos on the air to ridicule a public figure. I was never contacted. It was done without my knowledge, consent nor authorization. They blamed an intern for stealing it from the web site of my newspaper (who paid for one-time use of it), and removing my copyright info. I did get something out of, but it was a pittance. And the attitude from the network was extremely condescending and arrogant. Sadly, the courts in the USA do not recognize Canadian (nor apparently international) copyright laws.
#2 by Wayne on April 29, 2015 - 3:44 pm
If I were to sign this type of ‘thing’ the way I would like you probably would not publish my response on the grounds of not beinf ‘famley friendly’. But perhaps the abreviation fu might be aappropriate.
#3 by kelly kamplain on April 29, 2015 - 8:55 pm
Pay the artists.
#4 by John H on April 30, 2015 - 10:07 am
I’m absolutely thrilled for the happy ending for the photographer and the reinforcement of why we should register early and often.
However, I’m left wondering the following:
How did the magazine obtain the photo(s) with sufficient quality for a magazine cover?
Why would a “major national” magazine be so stupid to expose themselves to such obvious liability? Do they not have at least some legal consul on tap to know the expensive risks?
John
#5 by Edward C. Greenberg on April 30, 2015 - 6:57 pm
Answering your three questions:
1. The technology exists and such appropriation occurs every minute of every day. Remember we are not talking about fine art prints hanging in the Getty. Nobody -other than photographers- cares about the quality of images which are good enough to appear in magazines, newspapers and web sites.
2. Images are stolen every day because sophisticated infringers well know that the acttual odds of the creator having registered the work, finding the infringement AND pursuing the infringer are about 1%. Crime pays about 99% of the time.
3. Many media outlets no longer employ “real” photo editors and thus have no gatekeepers. It would be cost prohibitive to have the rights to each and every photo or illustration secured via an attorney. It is cheaper to run the risk of being caught and then when caught coughing up a small check which most photographers are thrilled to receive. As long as photographers do not regiter their work it pays for others to steal those works. Simple cost/benefit analysis. They are not stupid. They are acutely aware of the odds and potential cost of being caught. The odds say, “steal”.
#6 by John H on May 1, 2015 - 9:39 am
Thanks for the reality check Ed.
By the way, my wife and I bought your book, are heeding it’s advice and registering everything unpublished and published, left and right, under the sun. We are still slightly confused about back-registering published items in an efficient and practical way, but are in communication with the USCO about their pilot program (they are quite responsive and helpful).
Our goal is simple… when our IP consul asks “have you registered X” we will say “why yes… yes we have.” I could be wrong, but I’m guessing the follow on conversation is more pleasant when this question is answered in the affirmative.
Per your book, we are loading our guns.
#7 by Edward C. Greenberg on May 13, 2015 - 7:11 pm
1. We are pleased that you like the book. We would be even more pleased if you let the folks at Amazon reviews know how much you liked the book.
2. You are guessing correctly. A client came in to Ed’s office with some substantial “2015” infringements. When told that the images were registered in the ’90s when they were shot, Ed was in such shock that he actually couldn’t speak – for at least 30 seconds! Seriously, a photographer who was smart enough to register when Monica Lewinsky was just some college intern, will likely be financially rewarded at a point in time after Monica turns 42 years old.
Good luck and we are here if you need us.
Jack & Ed
#8 by Matt V on May 22, 2015 - 1:52 pm
Jack and I had a rather involved email discussion a while back on the published works issue. I’m intensely interested in hearing about the pilot program to which John H. is referring. For those of us who are part-time and still do a lot of unpaid photography, registering every shoot as it happens is just financially impossible. But…keeping the photographs on the hard drive (i.e., unpublished) until enough shoots have accumulated to be worth registering (e.g., every 3 months), is also impossible. My weekly shoots are published the same week, but because they carry no income and I have other personal expenses (mortgage, etc.) the $55/week it would take to register those as unpublished is cost prohibitive. And last I checked, ECO only allows for specifying 1 published date, when registering collections that have been previously published, which means either perjur yourself, or spend $55 per published date.
Frustrating times. I’m not so concerned about myself, but rather for the people I photograph. When I shoot paid gigs, I build in the registration fee as part of my price, but those paid shoots are not weekly happenings at this time. I’d love to have some recourse besides DMCA for when photographs from unpaid shoots are used in the wrong places.
#9 by Jack and Ed on May 22, 2015 - 6:27 pm
Matt, You can register a collection of published work with multiple publishing dates. You have to have the date and other info in the image title. You are also limited, at first to 300 published images on a registration. There is a “pilot” program at the Copyright Office to do this. The pilot project simply means they assign an inspector to walk you through and make sure you assemble and file correctly. It’s more complicated than registering a collection of unpublished work. So if you can separate your published and unpublished work, you can register your unpublished collection a few times a year and then do all the published ones 4 times a year within a 3 month periods, as long as initially it’s 300 or less published images. After you do 2 or 3 published collections in the pilot program, they will let you fly solo and I believe let you register more than 300.
#10 by Matt on May 23, 2015 - 6:40 pm
Last time I tried to register published photographs, ECO only offered 1 field to enter a published date. For the entire order. Perhaps I missed something, but that to me means I can only register one published collection at a time. Because the published collections all have different publish dates, and ECO only has 1 field for capturing that date.
There seems to be a fundamental disconnect between your advice and how people actually shoot and publish. We don’t have a schedule to publish on, and may publish a hundred or more photos a week. Dance recitals, shows, sporting events, family gatherings. We shoot, cull down to the best, and post on Facebook or SmugMug or Flickr. Usually within days, if not on the same day. We don’t make money off of these, in most cases, and cannot afford the high cost of registering all these. 300 max? That’s laughable. Event and concert photographers snicker at that number.
I appreciate your attempts, but you need to start telling it like it is. Prolific amateurs are screwed and cannot be reasonably expected to work with the current systems. Unless maybe you happen to be someone like stockbroker Andrew Peterson AKA Thomas Hawk with lots of disposable money. Photographs do not sit around on computers waiting the be published until enough have accumulated to make the cost worthwhile.
I know I’m not alone in this; there’s an entire community out there in this same position. Most just laugh it off and say, “Whatever.” They don’t participate in these discussions, which is a bit sad. Government is bad and inefficient and isn’t worth dealing with, and all that jazz.
Unpublished collections don’t exist, except for paid client work (which covers the fee), or pictures of that one flower that is being tweaked to perfection, or the occasional composite that takes weeks to finish.
#11 by Bubby L on June 1, 2016 - 8:28 pm
I have never published my photos in any way either as student photographer or since as a non-pro. I wonder if I should be copyrighting them.
1) I sometimes give them as gifts 2) I have had them for sale at year end student exhibits 3) I belong to a photography club and monthly winners are published in the newsletter and some are chosen for submission to regional and national competitions 4) club members often hang photos at local establishments where they can be purchased 5)someday I may actually try to sell some of my work
#12 by Jack and Ed on June 2, 2016 - 12:19 pm
Hi Bubby, A small correction. You already have the “copyright”, your question is really about the copyright “registration”. Short answer, yes, we recommend everyone to register everything. It’s like seatbelts, you never know when an infringement is coming and best to be proactive before an accident, rather than after. The results in damage to you is huge.