Sebastija

I think everyone needs to step back and take a deep breath and look clearly at what happened. There are a lot of implications of impropriety being bandied about, perhaps for what is and should be normal working procedures.

I think there is a huge potential for amateur photographers to develop our skills, build a fan base and begin making our work available to companies that want to pay us. Something like this could work against that happening and the agencies could come away saying “it’s not worth it to try to work with amateurs.” Certainly if there were many cases like Lorenzo’s, that could well happen, especially if this becomes fuel for a “Blogger Bitchslap” to the company via a site like BoingBoing.

Anyway, below is what I wrote as a comment to the original photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lorenzodom/249334520/#comment72157594309224763

Wait… Can you clarify something?

Beyond sending you a mockup of how they wanted to use your photo, did they use it in some other way?
I got the impression on first reading this, that they made some internal use of your photo, like an annual report, poster or something else distributed as a finished product.

Was that the case, or are you upset that they made a mockup of how they wanted to use it and sent that to you for your approval, to which you said no?

I’ve had people approach me for use of my photos. In some cases they’ve sent along a mockup of the magazine or in one case, a CD jewel box mockup that nicely included a CD, as well. It would never occur to me to be offended that some designer downloaded a low-res copy and popped it into Illustrator to make a mockup. I would assume that this process involves consulting others, bosses, creative directors, others involved in the normal process.

Now, if I’m reading this wrong and they actually distributed this as a finished product, even to their own staff, of course you are due compensation.

I get the sense that the most upsetting part of this is that you had a good image that is absolutely unusable because of a couple of unsigned model releases.

You may want to read up on the Orphan Works discussions on Lightstalkers and http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?sea...

The US Orphan Works Report: On January 23 the U.S. Copyright Office issued their Orphan Works Report, outlining a proposed amendment to the 1976 Copyright Act. It defines an “orphan work” as any work where the author is unidentifiable or unlocatable, and applies to both published and unpublished works, US and foreign, regardless of age. The legislation would be retroactive.

Basically, this law will make it perfectly legal for them to take your image, use it and say “Hey, we looked around for the owner, but couldn’t identify him. Sue us.”
Sadly, there are incredibly low limits on how much you can sue for, far lower than you could expect to spend on legal fees.

I am a photographer who cares deeply about not having my images misused, but I think you are blowing this out of proportion. They did, after all, contact you for your approval before distributing any sort of published copies, correct?

Oh… Small point on your example of Lange and Weston: You are confusing “the image” with “the photograph as an artifact”. Those pictures commanded those prices because they were signed originals, most likely printed by the artist themselves. At the same sale, in another lot, there was a group of 32 photographs also by Lange, “Selected Resettlement and Farm Security Administration Images”, that sold for $296,000.
The difference between those images and Bread Line is that Bread Line predates Lange’s work with the Farm Security Administration. The lot of 32, signed by Lange and including her most famous “Migrant Mother” are artifacts.
The “images”, on the other hand, belong to the American people as a whole, having been paid for by the FSA, a tax-funded entity.
You can download extremely high-resolution scans of the original negatives at the Library of Congress.
Bread Line’s image rights are owned by Lange’s estate.

I think everyone needs to step back and take a deep breath and look clearly at what happened. There are a lot of implications of impropriety being bandied about, perhaps for what is and should be normal working procedures.

I think there is a huge potential for amateur photographers to develop our skills, build a fan base and begin making our work available to companies that want to pay us. Something like this could work against that happening and the agencies could come away saying “it’s not worth it to try to work with amateurs.” Certainly if there were many cases like Lorenzo’s, that could well happen, especially if this becomes fuel for a “Blogger Bitchslap” to the company via a site like BoingBoing.

Anyway, below is what I wrote as a comment to the original photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lorenzodom/249334520/#comment72157594309224763

Wait… Can you clarify something?

Beyond sending you a mockup of how they wanted to use your photo, did they use it in some other way?
I got the impression on first reading this, that they made some internal use of your photo, like an annual report, poster or something else distributed as a finished product.

Was that the case, or are you upset that they made a mockup of how they wanted to use it and sent that to you for your approval, to which you said no?

I’ve had people approach me for use of my photos. In some cases they’ve sent along a mockup of the magazine or in one case, a CD jewel box mockup that nicely included a CD, as well. It would never occur to me to be offended that some designer downloaded a low-res copy and popped it into Illustrator to make a mockup. I would assume that this process involves consulting others, bosses, creative directors, others involved in the normal process.

Now, if I’m reading this wrong and they actually distributed this as a finished product, even to their own staff, of course you are due compensation.

I get the sense that the most upsetting part of this is that you had a good image that is absolutely unusable because of a couple of unsigned model releases.

You may want to read up on the Orphan Works discussions on Lightstalkers and http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?sea...

The US Orphan Works Report: On January 23 the U.S. Copyright Office issued their Orphan Works Report, outlining a proposed amendment to the 1976 Copyright Act. It defines an “orphan work” as any work where the author is unidentifiable or unlocatable, and applies to both published and unpublished works, US and foreign, regardless of age. The legislation would be retroactive.

Basically, this law will make it perfectly legal for them to take your image, use it and say “Hey, we looked around for the owner, but couldn’t identify him. Sue us.”
Sadly, there are incredibly low limits on how much you can sue for, far lower than you could expect to spend on legal fees.

I am a photographer who cares deeply about not having my images misused, but I think you are blowing this out of proportion. They did, after all, contact you for your approval before distributing any sort of published copies, correct?

Oh… Small point on your example of Lange and Weston: You are confusing “the image” with “the photograph as an artifact”. Those pictures commanded those prices because they were signed originals, most likely printed by the artist themselves. At the same sale, in another lot, there was a group of 32 photographs also by Lange, “Selected Resettlement and Farm Security Administration Images”, that sold for $296,000.
The difference between those images and Bread Line is that Bread Line predates Lange’s work with the Farm Security Administration. The lot of 32, signed by Lange and including her most famous “Migrant Mother” are artifacts.
The “images”, on the other hand, belong to the American people as a whole, having been paid for by the FSA, a tax-funded entity.
You can download extremely high-resolution scans of the original negatives at the Library of Congress.
Bread Line’s image rights are owned by Lange’s estate.

If you grab an image and include it in a mock-up for a client, you have increased the likelihood of using that as a paid image.

If you restrict yourself to images from stock agencies where you have written permission to use low-res images for composition purposes, the likelihood of then chasing down an image from another source for the final product is reduced.

Musicians and playwrights who won’t sign away online rights under any circumstances are similarly protecting their intellectual property, but are losing a huge opportunity to find new audiences.

This fight may be winnable, but I don’t see tighter contols on use of images for mock-ups benefitting the photographer.

OTOH, I seriously doubt lorenzodom is the name printed on your driver’s license.

If DDB tried to cheap out on final usage, yeah, they’re shmucks. Happens all the time. Just say no.

But free comping benefits independent photographers. Just because you might, in a fit of pique, be able to stop it doesn’t mean you should.

Unless, of course, the best interests of Getty and Corbis are what’s really driving you. Because they’re the only ones who benefit if you create enough of a stink to get free comping stopped.

FYI- Anonymity should never be flamed just for the sake of you not knowing who they are if they are giving you a valid argument for your money. I hope you have heard of Thomas Paine and Common Sense. Rather than fear anonymous feedback and criticize it for that, let the argument within stand or fall on it’s own merit.

Yes, I’m aware of comps, but common practice does not make it “okay” or “right” to do so. Especially, since there was no offer whatsoever of due compensation. They essentially wanted permission to use it for free, making excuses like “we have a small budget.” And then again, they used it nonetheless, albeit internally, without permission. Stock agencies have comps with sign-offs already in place.

And as per my story, their client, Max Magazine already has an established history of taking advantage of eager beavers by getting them to sign off on their pictures, comping use for magazines that sell by the tens if not hundreds thousands, and likely make as much revenue in turn.

And yes, you are absolutely right, this wouldn’t have been an issue if they had offered due compensation for my work (duh). Whether or not it was a big or little check is truly irrelevant.

Oh, and by the way, what really smells is anonymity. It is really easy to criticize from behind a curtain…