This is\u00a0hardly the first time this has happened to me. A client wants to\u00a0use photo of mine\u00a0in a magazine – sounds\u00a0great.\u00a0Client specifies the\u00a0photo, gives me the file specs, and I send the photo\u00a0to confirm that we are talking about the same shot, etc.\u00a0All is good and I’m about to send an invoice when they say:<\/p>\n
“We need\u00a0our contract signed”.
\n\u201cNo problem,\u201d says I, “send it to me ASAP”.<\/p>\n
Contract comes and as always, I read every word.<\/p>\n
No problem. I cross out and initial a little over 25% of their unacceptable terms. Sign it and send it back.<\/p>\n
No problem, pretty routine. Client gets my\u00a0changes and says that it\u00a0will issue a new contract with<\/i> my changes for me to sign….except for the last part they\u00a0say they won’t\u00a0change. It says, what court, which state and what state’s law will apply if there is a problem and oh yeah,\u00a0one more thing, I\u00a0have waive my right to sue.<\/p>\n
Umm… now a problem. I will still not sign it like that, as that\u2019s a deal breaker. They have their terms and I have mine. No signed contract, no use of my photo. I can live with that.
\nNo problem really. Today comes a brand new contract that is 180 degrees different from the first one they sent. In fact, looks so good, it\u2019s almost as if a photographer\u2019s lawyer wrote it.\u00a0I was reasonable and they agreed.<\/p>\n
Not the first time I\u2019ve danced this dance, it\u2019s just the latest.
\nAs Ed and I always say, in negotiating, you have to be willing to say \u201cno\u201d.
\nIf you learn that word effectively, you will have\u00a0fewer problems.<\/p>\n
Jack<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is\u00a0hardly the first time this has happened to me. A client wants to\u00a0use photo of mine\u00a0in a magazine – sounds\u00a0great.\u00a0Client specifies the\u00a0photo, gives me the file specs, and I send the photo\u00a0to confirm that we are talking about the same shot, etc.\u00a0All is good and I’m about to send an invoice when they say: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,20,6],"tags":[191,190,192],"class_list":["post-1057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-be-aware","category-stuff-you-should-know","category-you-cant-make-this-up","tag-contracts","tag-np-problem","tag-terms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1057"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1064,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1057\/revisions\/1064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}