Photo's and copyright
Discussion
Looking for advice from a professional photographer or copyright lawyer.
Long story so apologies but you need the background…
I am President of a Golf Club in Cambs. Like most clubs we have photos taken every year of the new Captain and Lady Captain.
For 20 years or so we had a member whom was a pro photographer take the pictures for us. He left to go back to Spain leaving us to find an alternative.
In 2006 the Captain, who is not blessed with a huge amount of street smarts organised a local photographer and had 2 14x11 (approx) pictures taken of himself and the Lady Captain. The pictures were framed, and mounted with nameplates, the photographer is a normal high street snapper, not a big name or reputation.
There are two issues with the pictures taken, firstly they are larger than all the others (10x8) and secondly the cost was over £350. As the pictures had already been done the club were left with no choice other than to pay for them.
The Captains year changes in November and this time I got involved to ensure there was no repeat of the mistakes made in 2006. We organised a sitting with another Photographer. This time the sitting was for the Captain, Lady Captain, Lady President, a past Captain whose picture had become damaged and myself. By comparison, he charged £225 for 5 pictures and 4 frames mounts and engraved nameplates (we had some frames already but needed two new frames to take last years photographs to get consistency).
Now to the crux of the problem, we asked the new photographer to reduce the size of the pictures taken last year and he said he was unable because it would infringe copyright. We went back to last years guy and he wants £35 each for two 10x8 prints of the 2006 photos.
Are we being ripped off? Is this the going rate or is this guy charging like an angry bull?
Who has copyright on the pictures, the club commissioned them and paid for them but we don’t appear to have any rights on the pictures, is this correct?
Is there any legal way around the issue, we don’t want any refund, we made a mistake, paid too much and have to accept it but I don’t want to pay this guy any more money when I think we have been overcharged in the first place?
To compound the issue, the two pictures taken in 2006 aren’t even good anyway, the Captain’s is slightly out of focus and is poorly arranged and lit but…..
Opinions based on knowledge would be appreciated.
Long story so apologies but you need the background…
I am President of a Golf Club in Cambs. Like most clubs we have photos taken every year of the new Captain and Lady Captain.
For 20 years or so we had a member whom was a pro photographer take the pictures for us. He left to go back to Spain leaving us to find an alternative.
In 2006 the Captain, who is not blessed with a huge amount of street smarts organised a local photographer and had 2 14x11 (approx) pictures taken of himself and the Lady Captain. The pictures were framed, and mounted with nameplates, the photographer is a normal high street snapper, not a big name or reputation.
There are two issues with the pictures taken, firstly they are larger than all the others (10x8) and secondly the cost was over £350. As the pictures had already been done the club were left with no choice other than to pay for them.
The Captains year changes in November and this time I got involved to ensure there was no repeat of the mistakes made in 2006. We organised a sitting with another Photographer. This time the sitting was for the Captain, Lady Captain, Lady President, a past Captain whose picture had become damaged and myself. By comparison, he charged £225 for 5 pictures and 4 frames mounts and engraved nameplates (we had some frames already but needed two new frames to take last years photographs to get consistency).
Now to the crux of the problem, we asked the new photographer to reduce the size of the pictures taken last year and he said he was unable because it would infringe copyright. We went back to last years guy and he wants £35 each for two 10x8 prints of the 2006 photos.
Are we being ripped off? Is this the going rate or is this guy charging like an angry bull?
Who has copyright on the pictures, the club commissioned them and paid for them but we don’t appear to have any rights on the pictures, is this correct?
Is there any legal way around the issue, we don’t want any refund, we made a mistake, paid too much and have to accept it but I don’t want to pay this guy any more money when I think we have been overcharged in the first place?
To compound the issue, the two pictures taken in 2006 aren’t even good anyway, the Captain’s is slightly out of focus and is poorly arranged and lit but…..
Opinions based on knowledge would be appreciated.
IIRC the author, i.e. the photographer has the copyright. Which also means he is entitled to charge you to reduce the pictures.
When you engage a photographer for this sort of thing, make sure you have written into a small contract that copyright in the photo passes to your club. Ideally get the negatives as well.
When you engage a photographer for this sort of thing, make sure you have written into a small contract that copyright in the photo passes to your club. Ideally get the negatives as well.
Can you not just get this year's photographer to re-photograph last-year's Captain and Lady Captain, for a modest addition to the overall cost, and get them printed to the same size for consistency?
If the Captain and Lady Captain refuse, get THEM to pay last year's photographer for the reduced size photos - I mean, they can't expect the club to pay for their cock-up, can they?
So they have 3 choices:
1. Agree to have photos retaken as if they were last year's (but better);
2. Pay to have photos changed to be consistent with the rest; or
3. Have no photos of them displayed at all.
If the Captain and Lady Captain refuse, get THEM to pay last year's photographer for the reduced size photos - I mean, they can't expect the club to pay for their cock-up, can they?
So they have 3 choices:
1. Agree to have photos retaken as if they were last year's (but better);
2. Pay to have photos changed to be consistent with the rest; or
3. Have no photos of them displayed at all.
delays said:
Technically, as you do not have the negatives, the photographer has all control over copyright - they are his photos after all.
Just never use him again.
Just never use him again.
Unfortunately he's well within his contractual rights. This was always the standard approach of professional photographers. However, in the digital age, many now assign limited rights to the client (since it's nigh-on impossible to stop someone duplicating a digital file).
£35 for a professional 10x8 reprint isn't out of the ordinary. Paying out the £70 and never using him again seems the least worst option (along with not employing divvies as the club officials
)If you never paid a premium for the copyright of course the photographer still owns it.
Social photographers always charge an extortionate rate for reprints, my lab charges £2.10 for a 1 off print so you can see the sort of mark up is on it, next time just pay for his time and then get the images printed yourself if cost is an issue.
Did you agree with the photographer what size prints you wanted? He gave you 11x14 prints because its a full frame print.
Social photographers always charge an extortionate rate for reprints, my lab charges £2.10 for a 1 off print so you can see the sort of mark up is on it, next time just pay for his time and then get the images printed yourself if cost is an issue.
Did you agree with the photographer what size prints you wanted? He gave you 11x14 prints because its a full frame print.
If the original images are not that good anyway (and I assume the frames are glass fronted?) you could consider scanning the larger size and reducing it to 10x8 as you do so, printing it on a suitable printer to achieve an acceptable result.
This of course would be for backup purposes lest the club house burn to the ground or some other catastrophe befalls it. The original images would, of course, be filed safely to prevent them fading.
Now I think this would be entirely unreasonable as a course of action had the price charged and the quality of the results been acceptable. People have to make a living and creating reprints, especially in a traditional wet darkroom for example, is quite time consuming and may restrict some potential for new work. But if the cost of more shots of more people for the following year is less expensive than the year previous it would seem like a fair trade. You fix your problem, he has no overheads and retains the revenue from the larger print you did not want.
Of course there may be a reason why the scan would not work too well but it does offer some potential for you to 'correct' your display.
This of course would be for backup purposes lest the club house burn to the ground or some other catastrophe befalls it. The original images would, of course, be filed safely to prevent them fading.
Now I think this would be entirely unreasonable as a course of action had the price charged and the quality of the results been acceptable. People have to make a living and creating reprints, especially in a traditional wet darkroom for example, is quite time consuming and may restrict some potential for new work. But if the cost of more shots of more people for the following year is less expensive than the year previous it would seem like a fair trade. You fix your problem, he has no overheads and retains the revenue from the larger print you did not want.
Of course there may be a reason why the scan would not work too well but it does offer some potential for you to 'correct' your display.
Gassing Station | Photography & Video | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff