Comments on: Wedding Phtography and Copyright Release

By: Karl

Karl — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:33:15 +0000

Actually, Michelle, I would think the similarity is more to a painter's commissioned portrait. I would imagine the portrait and all rights to it, belong to the consumer. Our confusion here is not only the portable and reproduction nature of phtographs, but also the privacy of the subjects.

My wife-to-be and I are allowing access in order for the professional to acture moments for our enjoyment only. We hire him/her for all their skill and expertise. It is to the artist/photographer to set a rate which which fairly compensate for the effort.

The only reasons I can think of for the artist/photographer to vigorously insist is 1) marketing and 2) profit.
1) marketing - easily solved by a request to use certain pictures with permission. If there is some objection by the client...then there is some reason the client does not want publicity for that moment captured. Is having a private concern an unreasonable request to honor? Since we paid for the work, I think not.
2) proft - The artist/photographer has already been fully paid for the work and all touch-ups, enhancements, effects put into it. Why should I allow the artist to make any more profit (without me) on work involving me as a subject on commissioned work?

Those are my thoughts.

Karl

By: Karl

Karl — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:33:15 +0000

By: Jennfier Hoffman

Jennfier Hoffman — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:19:25 +0000

I think what a lot of people dont understand here, is that us photographers put several hours worth of work into your portraits, after they are taken. They have to be edited and enhanced. Its like any other artist, you wouldnt be allowed to reproduce their work without a copywrite release. The other reason most of us charge extra for you to have rights to the images is because, how YOU reproduce them, is how WE will be viewed. If you go to walmart and print a portrait and the color isnt perfect, your friends notice and think its the photographers fault. We are protecting our business and how we are viewed.

By: Jennfier Hoffman

Jennfier Hoffman — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:19:25 +0000

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By: Mairi Rivers

Mairi Rivers — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:15:12 +0000

I am also a photographer. Some other photographers have already written about all the extra time that you are paying for (and depreciation of equipment which needs updating from time to time) when you hire them so I won't go into that again.
I do sell high resolution images on DVD and I retain copyright but I do give clients a right to print and give them advice on where to get them printed well.

One reason that you will find photographers reluctant to give away the rights to their photographs is that the photographs they take are representations of their work, a picture reference rather than a written one from a client if you like. Photographers are often reluctant to give images on DVD because if you take one of their pictures and have it printed at a low quality lab you might end up with a very poor quality print which the photographer might not be happy to have seen as a representation of their work.

Alternatively you might decide to alter the image in some way in photoshop, change the colours or perhaps add a special effect which the photographer might never dream of doing. The photographer might be horrified to see the results but it is still representative of their work as the person viewing the photo has no idea that the photographer didn't create the final product.
So by retaining copyright we are also retaining control over the end product which is what gets us referrals and new clients.
I hope this helps you to understand in some way why the control of our images is so important to us.

By: golfman_story

golfman_story — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:03:44 +0000

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By: Kinleigh

Kinleigh — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 05:55:09 +0000

Adam,
I guess we can safely say... you're not happily married?

By: funnyweddingtoasts

funnyweddingtoasts — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 23:52:46 +0000

Very good point.
Extremely important to sign up an agreement where the hiring party has full rights for the material produced
http://weddingspeecheswiki.info/

By: Michelle

Michelle — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:37:20 +0000

What some of you do not seem to realize is that you are paying the photographer for his or her expertise, time spent during consultations, time spent scouting the church/location of the shoot, actual shooting time the day of the wedding, time spent making duplicate copies of every capture (to protect your investment), time editing photos, more consulting time with proof sheets, time printing or dealing with a lab to make your prints, time reviewing all the prints after they have returned from the lab to assure you are getting quality prints, and time getting them out to you. You also need to understand that the equipment a photographer uses costs thousands of dollars. A professional photographer invest in high quality equipment to assure that you get a quality product. The other thing you need to understand is that photographer is in a sense, an artist. Would an artist give you full copyright priveledges of a painting? No, they would not. That copyright remains with that artist. Therefore, all copyrights remain with the photographer. They may give you the right to duplicate specific images for a specific time period, however, you will not have the right to sell or use those images for commercial purposes. That is the right of the photographer only.

By: ZildjianKX

ZildjianKX — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 05:14:22 +0000

I'm trying to find a wedding photographer right now and I am also facing this same issue. I find it absurd that I am paying $4k for 6 hours of shooting and getting ONLY a limited license to make personal copies (you can buy a CD for $500) (note, this isn't even for a top photographer, the good ones cost $8k and sell their CDs for $1k). And that the photographer owns my photos and may use and sell it for any reason without my consent. I know they only pay their second shooters around $300 for the same amount of time (about $50/hour). If we are not paying to get rights in our photos, we are essentially paying the primary photographer $666/hour. That is an extremely high amount for any profession.

Photographers may say - we spend a lot of time post wedding processing the photos to make albums for you. First, how much time do the spend post processing - no one seems to want to give me a real number and, under their agreements, they are not obligated to spend any time. Second, they are compensated for this time through insane amounts they charge for the albums. $1,500 per album? Those 20 pages of pictures should look perfectly edited at that price.

As for contracts - I review commercial contracts for a living and the standard contracts for most wedding vendors suck. They are drafted solely to give the vendor max rights, min liability, and stick you with little rights and all liability. And the answer you get when you comment that this clause seams unreasonable is - this is standard. So because it's standard for vendors to screw over customers, we should accept it because it's standard. Most of these agreements would not be signed if they were between two sophisticated commercial parties. [DISCLAIMER - DO NOT RELY ON THIS FOR LEGAL ADVICE]

Regarding rights for the photos - ideally the photographer would assign the copyright to the customer and the customer can grant a LIMITED non-exclusive license back to the photographer. Why grant a license back to the photographer? It seems reasonable for the photographer to want to use his/her photos to promote his/her work on her website. How else would be attract the next customers. But other than that, I don't see why they should have the right to sell your photos to third parties for a profit. I don't see why they can put you into an ad without your consent. That just seems like a serious personal violation.

Lastly. Back in the days of actual negatives, photographers charged customers $500 for the negatives because essentially after this sale, the photographer could no longer make profit off selling pictures to the customer and the photographer could no longer use or sell photos for the photographer's commercial use (to promote his/her self or sell to third parties). The $500 compensated him/her for the lost negatives profits and the loss of using the photos for commercial use. However, now, even when you pay $500 for the DIGITAL negatives, the photographer wants to be able to continue to reap these other benefits (sell you photos and use your photos for commercial purposes). It's like they want two bites of the apple. That is not cool in my opinion.

By: Jewels Gray

Jewels Gray — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:31:00 +0000

My husband and I are professional photographers and we give all of our clients their digital, high-resolution negatives on disc, as well as 4x6 inch proof prints of all the finals in a proof album...our clients own the copywrite and are free to do whatever they want with them! You have enough to worry about with planning a wedding - why don't you just hire us and move on to the next thing!? www.jeffgrayart.com

By: Wedding in Paris

Wedding in Paris — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:43:31 +0000

who’s willing to give us our images in high-resolution digital form along with a copyright release to make our own copies of the images. I’m currently researching language for the copyright release, and the advice offered on the subject—mostly by photograhers—strikes me as excessively restrictive. Photographers seem to regard it as extremely important to micro-manage their customers’ use of the images they take, giving them glorified permission slips that only allow the pictures to be used for personal,

By: mary

mary — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 07:33:53 +0000

By: mary

mary — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 06:45:16 +0000

Hello Adam Thierer,
rememer all wives are not bloodsuckers like yours

By: joegratz

joegratz — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 22:42:14 +0000

Copyright assignment and "works for hire" are very different. What's needed here is an assignment of the copyright by a written agreement. Work for hire in the context of a specially commissioned work like this (rather than a work by an actual employee in the scope of employment) only applies when the work is:

"a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. For the purpose of the foregoing sentence, a “supplementary work” is a work prepared for publication as a secondary adjunct to a work by another author for the purpose of introducing, concluding, illustrating, explaining, revising, commenting upon, or assisting in the use of the other work, such as forewords, afterwords, pictorial illustrations, maps, charts, tables, editorial notes, musical arrangements, answer material for tests, bibliographies, appendixes, and indexes, and an “instructional text” is a literary, pictorial, or graphic work prepared for publication and with the purpose of use in systematic instructional activities. " 17 USC 101.

So a work for hire agreement might well not effectively cause copyright to end up in Tim's hands. Assignment is what's needed instead.

By: Jim Harper

Jim Harper — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 03:15:38 +0000

Had I known Adam was going to comment, I wouldn't have read any of this. I don't read any of his stuff. But he snuck a comment in there - and I find it meritorious!

YOUR jab at homeownership is where things go off the rails. Owning a house RULEZ! Provided you don't put a wife and kids in it. Put a big huge hot tub in the bedroom, and a monster stereo system and a disco ball. We're talkin' ladeeeez, my man. The ladeeeeeeeze!!

Um, anyway.

In answer to this problem here, use the "work for hire" doctrine. As I recall - and Tom said so too - you have to get an agreement in writing that the works produced by your photographer are works for hire. Then you own the copyright and all the licensing mumbo jumbo is gone.

As an attorney, I must note to you that this does not constitute legal advice. Would you like mustard with this pretzel?

By: Andy Havens

Andy Havens — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 01:24:35 +0000

Good photographers are very hard to come by. And, at a wedding, a crappy photographer can be a social pain on top of an artistic one. Our photographer (who we didn't know at all, aside from as a photographer) kept trying to become buddies with folks at the wedding. Get referrals.

My other recommendation is a more creative one: put one or two disposable instant cameras (ones with a flash) on every table at the reception and ask that, as a present to you, everybody take as many pics as possible. I guarantee that more than half of your favorite pics from the event will come from those crappy cameras.

By: Tim Lee

Tim Lee — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 03:46:48 +0000

I'm guessing your wife isn't a regular TLF reader. I agree about the house thing, though. Owning a house is for suckers.

By: Tim Lee

Tim Lee — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 03:45:07 +0000

The point about transferability is a great one. I've added that to the agreement. Thanks!

By: Tim Lee

Tim Lee — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 02:35:06 +0000

Thanks! That's very helpful. I've made some changes based on your suggestions.

By: Adam Thierer

Adam Thierer — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:48:58 +0000

Tim... I don't know jack about any of the copyright issues in play here, but I do know about marriage. It sucks. I do not recommend it. And then there's kids. Ugh.

This gets to my "Theory of How Fun is Drained From a Man's Life":

First, you buy a house. That's a major set-back to the fun life. Suddenly you have to take care of a bunch of BS that you used to just sweep under the rug and leave for the landlord or the next tenant.

Second, you get married. A little bit more of the fun in your life evaporates from life thanks to these vampires we call wives. Oh, and they are bloodsuckers, my friend.

Third, you have kids. Having kids is the OJ cut to the jugular of fun. I mean, it's all over at that point. Case in point, it is 7:00 on a Friday night as I write this and my kids are screaming at me about some stupid Hannah Montana video not working. What happened to my life?

Hold on to your youth and independence Man! Do not give in !!

By: sarterus

sarterus — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 22:23:39 +0000

Grats!

Great post, it show how problematic current copyright law is. Copyrights should not adding transactional cost where they are not needed. People should not have to hire a lawyer to make a simple transaction like this. There is a need for simple HOW TO's and standard legal forms for helping people use CC licenses with works. I know CC is working on this for film projects and may be presenting some of the work at SXSW this year.

On to the legal issues:

1. You may want to add something about the license being transferable. If you die you want your children or family to be able to use the photos. CC licenses do not address this issue because they are apply to everyone not just you.

Here is some language that includes transfer rights rewitten in YouTube's ToS:

I hereby grant XXXXX a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the images in connection with any business or personal use in any media formats and through any media channels. (personally this is a little bit of an ugly sentence, I would add sublicenseable and transferable license to the CC wording)

I would then recommend defining "the images" explicitly. I am not sure what happens to a transferable license when you die it may follow your estate it may not. There is one other issue with taking CC language out of context, the CC licenses define terms like adaptation explicitly within the four corners of the agreement and you might lose some of that meaning.

2. "allowing us to commercially exploit the photos won’t prevent our photographer from doing so as well (which is fine by me)"

The photographer who owns the copyright generally can NOT use your wedding photos commercially as you and the other people in the photos have a right of publicity that prevents use without your permission. Retaining commercial rights is just a way to charge you more for another type of use later.

3. Another option would be to have the photographer post the images to an image hosting site like Flicker or Picasa and choose a CC license for the work. The downside is that this grants a CC like license to the whole world not just you, although this helps your family and children long term and gets the photographer notice if they have an account.

Good luck.

3L Seattle Univeristy Law
Former CC Legal Intern
Not Legal Advice just things to think about.

By: Gary McGath

Gary McGath — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 21:37:14 +0000

Getting rights to wedding pictures is very important from a long-term preservation standpoint. Although photographers want to retain the copyright on the chance that one of their customers will become famous and the pictures will have commercial value, in many cases they become impossible to track down after ten years or more, so the copyrights to your own wedding pictures go into limbo and no one can legally distribute copies.

Mulnix's claim that he'd be giving away stuff for "free" by releasing the copyright is nonsense. If he's factoring the small chance of commercial exploitation into his anticipated revenues, he can just raise his fee by the small amount needed to offset that.

By: Mark Blafkin

Mark Blafkin — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:13:18 +0000

Having just gone through this myself, I think you'll find that the wedding photography industry if full of options at different price levels and pricing models. A lot of photographers still follow the old practice of charging slightly less per/hour but then retaining all the control over the pictures and their printing of them. Some, like the one I chose, charge you more per hour but are willing to give you DVDs filled with TIFs and RAW images that you have full control over (minus his/her ability to reuse for his/her own marketing usually). You can also usually negotiate with a photographer on the details if you really like his/her work.

In the end, however, there are a lot of choices out there. If you don't like the deal one is giving you...go find a different one. In the end you don't have the right to define your photographer's business model, but you do have the right to choose someone different if you're not happy with their practices.

From a non-IP perspective, however, I highly recommend that you focus first on the quality of work and reputation, and second on the rights you have to the pictures. If you have a thousand blurry, dark, and useless pictures in the end, who cares if you can reprint them in the next Cato corporate brochure??

By: Kieffer

Kieffer — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 19:49:09 +0000

Congrats on the upcoming wedding!

I got married last November, and the copyright release for our images is as follows:

"This letter certifies that you have purchased unlimited usage rights to all original photographs created by [photographer] on [date]

As the rightful owners of these photographs, you may reproduce and re-distribute your photos as you see fit, and without restriction

[Photographer] hereby surrenders all further claims to the intellectual property rights for theses photos with the exception of the marketing usage release you signed in conjunction with your service contract with us, incorporated herein by reference."

Simple and straightforward. This is pretty much the language I've been using for any of my shoots ever since, and then I just make sure to charge an appropriate fee for my work. I can't imagine that this isn't the direction such event photography is headed in given that so much of the distribution is likely to happen via media other than photographic prints.

By: Steve R.

Steve R. — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 19:07:27 +0000

First, congratulations on the pending marriage.

This issue is "bigger" than photography businesses. It basically applies to all professionals who do "work for hire", for example architects. I don't know how this turned out, but over five years ago I was involved in a project where an architect had prepared some building plans. I don't remember all the details. The issue of copyright surfaced for whatever reason. From what I remember, these concepts were tossed out in the ensuing debate.
1. Can the new owner of the lot use the plans that were previously prepared for the old owner? The new owner may have claimed that the plans were a part of the lot purchase. The prior owner may have sold the lot as "ready to build".
2. Can the architect sell the same plans to a number of other potential builders? If the architect sells the plans, would the person who commissioned the work be entitled to a rebate?

Obviously, these issues (in a free market system) are open for negotiation. Nevertheless, logic would seem to imply that when you hire someone to prepare a "creative work", the person who did the hiring should be entitled to all the ownership privileges. Without being hired the "creator" probably would never have developed the work.

Fortunately, you have the option of not hiring them if they are unwilling to negotiate. Wish you the best in your upcoming marriage.

By: MikeRT

MikeRT — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:06:34 +0000

Congratulations! I just got married about 14 months ago, and we went through a similar situation. Fortunately for us, we chose a small town photographer who, while expensive, did a really good job and gave a lot of bang for the buck. This is probably the one area where you really must shop around when preparing for a wedding because the prices and packages can vary so much.

One option that we thought about was hiring a college student. Where we got married, we could have offered a contract to students at UVA, JMU, GMU or GWU. For $2,000, you could probably get the best photography student to come out and take a few hundred pictures.

A huge downside with buying the copyrights is that a lot of places will not develop them for you unless you have the contract with you. If you need extra prints on the cheap for family, I strongly recommend Target. In our experience, they don't really care about copyright issues with printing pictures, so you probably won't ever get asked for proof that you bought the pictures.

By: Tim Lee

Tim Lee — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:38:11 +0000

The photographer wouldn't be giving me the photos "for free," she'd be giving them to me in exchange for a rather large lump-sum payment. I'm fine with paying extra for full rights to my pictures, but since it's my wedding and I'm paying for her time, i should be able to get those rights.