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Overreaction?
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I recently did a photoshoot – for which I was well paid – for an Irish website. We had agreed verbally (and in writing by IM, if you want to look at it like that) that they would have free use of my photos in return for full attribution and accreditation.
Its probably not the greatest of deals for me, but the website was placed such that it would work out as incredibly good word of mouth for me and my work, as well as great exposure. However, they took the archive of photos I provided them, stripped the EXIF info (that had my copyright and contact information), watermarked them, and just uploaded them all to Flickr. Considering I already had the photos up it was a bit of a slap to the face.
And no, there was absolutely no attribution anywhere. I asked several times that they provide attribution and found they were vague, so at this point I’ve sent Yahoo a takedown notice for their photos.
Am I overreacting on this part? I’m more than happy for them to use my photos, so long as I get credited.
I don’t think you are over-reacting… but they did pay you for the shoot .. yes! In that case I personally wouldn’t take it so far as to get yahoo to take the photos down.
I’m guessing you may already have been through some hoops.. but here’s what i would do :
1 Send them a copy of the IM log outlining your agreement for credit ..
2 Inform them of what you would consider to be a minimum in this regard , and why you aren’t happy with the stripped Info from your files.
3 And then inform them that if they break your agreement then removing the images will be your next course of action… which of course you don’t want to doIf that doesn’t work .. then get nasty with a solicitors letter ;)
Good Luck
Getting credited with shots is never an easy task.. ask any photographer who’s shots get put in newspapers – it doesn’t matter how nicely you ask – it’s still really hit and miss if you get your name next to the shot!
Tim
I might be wrong on this so someone can correct me.
I had assumed that if you get a shot printed you are not always credited in the print
version but that other people in the industry will have access to your details if you are required
for future work.I dunno maybe thats what they mean by credited. I’m probably completely wrong though.
It does depend on the type of contract you had with them
there are two main types. contract for use and contract for work.I must stress these are general terms and I am not a lawyer, but have dealt with these types of contract before.
If you were contracted for work. then the photos basically are theirs to do with what they will.
If you were contracted for use, the photos are yours and basically they bought the rights to use them. generally the way they can be used etc are in the contract.
Yes there are lots of other versions of contract but they all basically boil down to these two fundementals. So it really depends on what you agreed to.
they have taken full control of the photos, send an invoice for them all, a minimum of ?400 per image, payment terms 28 days, then proceed to your solicitor. sorry to hear this but too many designers out there are taking liberties.
Useful info. from the replies already posted, most notably Steve’s (stcstc), although all are worth bearing in mind.
Just a brief comment on the EXIF. EXIF headers are often stripped out and shouldn’t really contain any “authorship” information. That’s a task much better left to the IPTC header. There’s nothing to stop an unscrupulous user from removing/changing info from the IPTC header of course, but it generally has a far higher chance of remaining intact and is the industry standard for the exchange of information relating to the image, so that’s the best place to put your copyright info. The only way to fully protect yourself really is to use something like Digimarc. You can set up an action in PS that will read the necessary fields from the IPTC header and place them in the Digimarc watermark, so the whole process can be simplified – more here and here (just ignore the bit about registering your copyright as that’s not relevant here).
Fintan
As I said earlier, Its really important the type of contract he has, cos if he has a contract for work, they own the images generally. Thats how I employ a cameraman for a video or film shoot.
and it is far to easy to get into that type of contract.
The best way to keep out of them is not to charge per day. but charge per image. then if you spend 10 days getting the image thats your issue, but you own the rights then.
Generally if you charge by the day then it sort of implies a ‘contract to work’ type contract. as if you charge per image its a cost for the use of the picture.
hope this helps and makes sense
Fenster. Did you have some form of written contract with your client. does it outline the IP of the imagery. If not I would suggest it might be very hard for you to do anything.
Aye, everyone’s replies have been informative.
As it is, I’ll consider the experience a lesson learnt.
I’ll assume this is Mark from the avatar.
There is not a whole heap you can do about it. Even in practical terms accreditation can be vague.
Some people get around it with putting Mandatory Credit: Fenster in the IPTC, but as you’ve said, this can be stripped out.A few things: Well paid: A pro day rate is about ?1000 (obviously different work can command more, eg large national advertising jobs/aerial work). All the press guys in Galway charge ?100 per hour inc VAT on a job. More for late hours, etc
This only includes the work, not the images. Some allow full use as part of this fee, some don’t.
One thing is clear though, under Irish copyright law, unless you sign over the images in writing, you still own the images. Unless you signed a work for hire agreement, giving them full rights, then you have the rights to the image. Generally speaking when you license images and allow full use, this does not include resale rights. Again it depends on your agreement.Aye, it’s me, Sean.
Would that I could command those fees! For sure though I will make sure to cover myself in future with a written agreement.
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