While I make every effort to accommodate a client's needs in providing photographic and writing services, I do not accept editorial assignments on a work-for-hire basis. Nor, will I sell all rights to any of my stock photography or writing to an editorial market.
Both work for hire and sale of all rights are not only counter to the long term interests of my business, but are also against the best interest of the client, if he is interested in establishing long-term relationships with providers of creative content.
This page provides background on why ownership of copyright to my work is one of the most important assets of my business, and how a clear understanding of issues related to copyright benefits both the provider and purchaser of photography.
The copyright law
The current U.S. copyright law, enacted in 1978 after extensive consideration, gives authors automatic ownership of their work from the time that it is fixed in tangible form. This law changed the previous policy that typically awarded copyright to the party commissioning the creative work, rather than the actual author of the work.
While the new (1978) law provided exceptions under which the copyright should still belong to the assigning entity, these were clearly delineated and focused primarily on situations where the author is in an employee relationship with the organization acquiring copyright ownership.
In this situation, defined as work for hire, the individual author derives a variety of benefits—insurance, paid leave, contributions to retirement funds, severance pay in case of termination, etc.—from his employer in return for his relinquishing ownership of his work.
Independent authors
Independent authors, including self-employed photographers, receive no long-term benefits from those who commission their work. Instead, they are dependant on their body of work, whether created through commissioned assignments or self-assigned work for stock photo markets, to provide a continuing stream of income.
Only ownership of copyright—which would be relinquished under a work-for-hire contract—allows an author to exercise full control over his work.
A photographer needs to be able to determine not only how and where his work is used, but also how his name is associated with that work.
Under work for hire or sale of all rights, a photographer loses even the minimal right to use his own work for self-promotion and in his portfolio.
In a worst-case scenario, a client with all rights to a photographer's images can even unfairly compete with the originating photographer by selling or giving away these images to potential clients of the originating photographer, whether or not the photographer's name is associated with the images.
And, most destructive to the photographer's long-term business interests, when a photographer surrenders copyright ownership to another party, he even surrenders the right to be known as the author of the work that he created.
Value of photographic work
In advertising, there are situations where a client may justifiably seek an all-rights buyout, such as when a particular image is incorporated into a company's trademarked logo, and the client wants to prevent all other uses of that image. (Even under these situations, the photographer typically retains promotional rights.)
However, for such advertising uses, the photographer is compensated with a much higher fee—sometimes as much as ten times the amount that the same image would command in an editorial market.
Assuming that such a fee represents the true value of a given work, few editorial clients would be willing to pay or afford such fees.
The solution
The answer is that editorial clients do not have to pay such fees. By allowing a photographer to earn additional income from editorial work in the future, the client purchases only a fair share of the total value of the image.
This approach does not negate the individual requirements of each client. In addition to purchasing basic rights to reproduce a given image at a given size in a given edition of a given publication, the client can also license any of the following:
While each of the above options commands an additional fee, this fee is in line with additional value received by the client. Re-use rights may be purchased either at the time of the original purchase of rights or at a later time. To avoid surprises for the client, a schedule for re-use fees can be incorporated into the original contract, with the actual purchase of and payment for the re-use to take place at a later time.
Long-term relationships
I always strive for long-term relationships with clients. Doing work on a for-hire basis does not foster such a relationship. (I have worked with some stock photography clients for more than 20 years.)
While some photographers may accept work-for-hire or buyout terms, chances are that these photographers will not be around for the long term, as doing business on that basis does not make economic sense.
If I can provide you with the rights that you need for use of my work at a price that we both find fair, and I retain the right to earn future income from my work and to associate my name with that work, we both win.
In the long run we both benefit if I can provide you with work that we can both be proud of.
Member
[rev.99/08]
(If you arrived directly at this page from another site and do not see a list at left, click here to load the frames.)
[Transportation] [Pictures] [Newsletters]
[Ernest H. Robl Home Page]