{"id":538,"date":"2011-08-04T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2011-08-04T16:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/?p=538"},"modified":"2011-08-04T13:06:08","modified_gmt":"2011-08-04T17:06:08","slug":"beer-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/?p=538","title":{"rendered":"BEER HERE!"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>We\u2019ve always stressed in our talks that as creative people it\u2019s important to know the customs, culture, specific language, and the \u201crules\u201d of the industry and the people who you work with and that of those who hire you. Wedding photographers have their own vocabulary and culture as does advertising photographers and as does photojournalists. And as does every photo specialty. It\u2019s not just our varied industry, but other industries. It can be critical as a photographer to understand some of these issues. At the end of this post, you\u2019ll understand why someone being of legal age, 18 or even 21, signing your release, may not be good enough to keep you out of hot water, or worse, warm beer. In order to stay on the side of angels and away from bad situations, you need to do your research.<\/p>\n

For example, stockbrokers are required by law to “know their customers”. The Feds have imposed a legal duty upon stockbrokers to know something about the personal finances and general circumstances of their customers. Basic scenario- little old lady, 97 years old, lives alone in a rented apartment in Buffalo and has $100,000 which is literally her life’s savings. \u00a0Some slick broker, who gets a commission on each trade, “puts her into” very speculative penny stocks to the tune of $99,999.32. Why? \u00a0Because the broker gets great commissions on such trades. \u00a0Little old lady’s penny stock account lives up to billing promptly becoming worth – one penny.<\/p>\n

The trades made by the broker were clearly inappropriate for the customer. \u00a0A 97 year old cannot risk being wiped out in a single day period. \u00a0The broker did not know, care, or care to find out who the customer was or what her unique financial needs were. \u00a0The broker can be sued and grandma is likely to win in court – big.<\/p>\n

So you are asking yourself, “What does any of this have to do with me?\u201d Just as it is vitally important that you know as much about your client to get and keep business from it, you need to know about the client’s product or services<\/em>. \u00a0Ads for financial services industry, investment vehicles and pharmaceuticals must by law, administrative rules and\/or industry code, conform to certain standards. (Who doesn’t love listening to the list of potential side effects of medications advertised on TV?) Some industries have their own advertising codes and “self police”. This is done in whole or in part to keep federal regulators or those who want federal regulations, at bay. \u00a0A photographer\/illustrator working on ads or promotional materials needs to know whether there are any advertising codes or laws in place, which require compliance. \u00a0Doing so can save the artist from A) considerable grief, B) losing the client and\/or C) adding money to a lawyer\u2019s daughter’s college fund.<\/p>\n

A great example of an industry that “self-regulates” is the beer industry. \u00a0Most of the major brewers and craft brewers including InBev (Budweiser, Stella Artois, Becks), Miller – Coors and Heineken subscribe to the Beer Institute’s “Advertising and Marketing Code”. The Beer Institute was organized in 1986 to represent the industry before Congress, state legislatures and public forums across the country. The Federal Trade Commission has recently has been looking into the beer industry’s self regulation of its advertising. The cost of beer ads exceeded a billion dollars in 2010.<\/p>\n

At the Beer Institute’s website, www.beerinstitute.org<\/a>you can learn a lot about their \u201cbeer culture\u201d and their code. \u00a0You might think the Beer Institute is a benevolent trade association or if you are of a cynical bent, a lobbying group. \u00a0Maybe it\u2019s a bit of both but we digress.<\/p>\n

For over 25 years the Code has laid out very specific items which beer advertising may or may not contain. \u00a0Go to the site and skim the code by all means if you intend to do any beer ads. Doing so reveals that beer ads can’t for example: condone underage drinking or drunk driving, portray retail outlets which sell beer as “unkempt or unmanaged”, no beer logos can appear on toys, games etc. used primarily by underage persons, should not depict Santa Clause nor situations where beer is being consumed rapidly. Among the lengthy lists of “cant’s” is Section 3e:<\/p>\n

“Models and actors employed to appear in beer advertising and marketing materials should be a minimum of 25 years old, substantiated by proper identification, and should reasonably appear to be over 21 years of age”.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Betcha most of you out there did not know anything about the Beer Institute’s Advertising Code until about 5 minutes ago. And you thought you knew all about beer! \u00a0Truth is we would not have known about it either if we weren’t currently engaged in a litigation concerning an unreleased image used for a beer campaign where the model was maybe 18 years old when the photo was created.
\nHere’s the red meat (of tofu if you prefer) that we are providing you at no cost or obligation, though we do cheerfully accept gifts:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the 21st Century and it is just not sufficient to just do some superficial background research on (only) the client. The artist as business person, must be familiar with the product or service to be promoted. \u00a0One must know<\/em> and understand any relevant government regulations or trade industry codes which regulate how the product or service can be advertised. Don’t assume that just because a model is old enough to sign a release, that he\/she is old enough to appear in the ad\/promotion envisioned by the client who may be oblivious to the rules and regulations that may govern the advertising of its own industry. Be knowledgeable about the do’s and don’ts when the job is bid and let the client know that you know about any limitations. \u00a0So doing demonstrates knowledge that will help protect your client (or its ad agency) from their own ignorance.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, doing homework may prevent one from being named in a lawsuit or maybe just as bad – not getting paid. \u00a0The assumption by many photographers is that a model is “of age” at eighteen or twenty-one. 99.9% of the time an 18 or 21 year old can sign a contract without the need of parental supervision. \u00a0But sometimes being of “legal age” isn’t good enough. \u00a0\u00a0Look for special needs or circumstances that may affect who is cast, what you shoot and how you shoot. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There are countless products and services whose advertising\/promotion are subject to some form of regulations or statutes – just about all which will be revealed via a simple Google search.<\/p>\n

We good now? How about a beer?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve always stressed in our talks that as creative people it\u2019s important to know the customs, culture, specific language, and the \u201crules\u201d of the industry and the people who you work with and that of those who hire you. Wedding photographers have their own vocabulary and culture as does advertising photographers and as does photojournalists. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-copyright-info"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538","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=538"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":541,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions\/541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}