Opinions on Copyright

[Ryan McGinnis-2]

I'm going to be participating in a conference call with a stock photo
agency in the near future in regards to what I as a photographer want
to see from the agency I work with in regards to copyright
enforcement.  Thought I'd gather a few opinions from here since there
is such a cross section of great stock photographers in this group.
Do we want our agencies to be lenient or strict?  What impact does
infringement have on us?  Should first time offenders get a free pass?
 Do you have the time and resources to pursue infringers on your own?
And anything else you might think of.  I feel pretty well-versed on
this stuff and am pretty sure I know what I want to talk about, but
I'm trying to see if there are any angles that I've missed.

--
-Ryan McGinnis

[hans.halberstadt]

Ryan was asking about our attitudes regarding enforcement of copyrights;

My experience and opinion lean heavily toward insisting on penalties. It seems to be the only way to get the attention of the consumer-side of the business.  

I notice that there's a lot less theft of my stuff in the past few years, and maybe that's because people are being more careful.  

And the big agencies -- I had some stuff at Corbis till last year -- proved to me that they wouldn't protect me from thieves even when the theft was clearly documented.  

So I vote for enforcing that 3x or 5x penalty most of us have in our terms and conditions statements, when people intentionally infringe.

Also -- our policy is to impose NO penalty if somebody contacts us and says, "Ooops, we just discovered we used your stuff out of license, what do we owe you?"  In cases like that, it's the normal fee.  We only get crabby when we discover the infringement ourselves.

Hans Halberstadt
Military Stock Photography

[PaulSkelcher]

An agency should give assurance to photographer that metadata containing copyright and creator info gets passed along with the image for comps and hirez downloads.
Even a brief explanation on the home page about copyright and Digital Millennium Copyright Act, reinforced by similar wording on licenses, invoices etc.

Agency should have a financial incentive-such as a proportion of settlement fee/award-to identify, pursue, and engage attorney for infringement on behalf of the photographer, and reasonably expect that submitted images are registered with the Copyright Office.

Paul

[PaulSkelcher]

An agency should give assurance to photographer that metadata containing copyright and creator info gets passed along with the image for comps and hirez downloads.
Even a brief explanation on the home page about copyright and Digital Millennium Copyright Act, reinforced by similar wording on licenses, invoices etc.

Agency should have a financial incentive-such as a proportion of settlement fee/award-to identify, pursue, and engage attorney for infringement on behalf of the photographer, and reasonably expect that submitted images are registered with the Copyright Office.

Paul

[David Riecks]

At 10:21 PM 9/28/2009, PaulSkelcher wrote:
>An agency should give assurance to photographer that metadata
>containing copyright and creator info gets passed along with the
>image for comps and hirez downloads.

Paul:

Based on the findings of the Stock Artists Alliance, Photo Metadata
Project (http://www.stockartistsalliance.org/photometadata-project),
it is plain to see that this is not happening with many distributors.
Most don't even include the license type in the image that is made
available to the licensee.

David

--
David Riecks  (that's "i" before "e", but the "e" is silent)
Need Keywords for your database? Get the Controlled Vocabulary Solution
http://controlledvocabulary.com/products/ support for a dozen of the
most popular imaging applications from Adobe Bridge to Photo Mechanic.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Bob Croxford]

On 29 Sep 2009, at 01:36, Ryan McGinnis wrote:

> And anything else you might think of. I feel pretty well-versed on
> this stuff and am pretty sure I know what I want to talk about, but
> I'm trying to see if there are any angles that I've missed.
>
> --  
> -Ryan McGinnis

Ryan

A point I have raised, which doesn't seem to worry any photographers  
or agencies, is what they do about all the digital files floating  
around? What policy does the agency have about chasing reuses in  
years to come? I have some agency sales on 3 year licences which are  
still being used by the client after 5 years but the agent wont chase  
them. Another, much smaller agency with a staff of six has someone  
chasing re-use fees almost full-time. It pays.

Bob Croxford

www.atmosphere.co.uk

[Leif Skoogfors-2]

--- In STOCKPHOTO@..., Bob Croxford <bobcroxford@...> wrote:

>
> A point I have raised, which doesn't seem to worry any photographers  
> or agencies, is what they do about all the digital files floating  
> around? What policy does the agency have about chasing reuses in  
> years to come? I have some agency sales on 3 year licences which are  
> still being used by the client after 5 years but the agent wont chase  
> them. Another, much smaller agency with a staff of six has someone  
> chasing re-use fees almost full-time. It pays.
>
> Bob Croxford
>
> www.atmosphere.co.uk

This is a very serious issue. I had the opportunity to look at a large number of licenses granted by one of my "agents". All had a one year expiration. I checked the on line images, 7% were up over that time. In two different licenses, a print only was on line for 4 years. Another had been delivered with the time limit not clearly spelled out, leaving the end user with a "till the end of time" image use.

The 7% of licenses that were abused amounted to a possible income equal to all of the other licenses granted. Yes, having licenses carefully monitored pays and I  am shocked that these distributors allow work to  go out the door, only looking at the immediate fee with out monitoring further. Imagine Hertz renting cars, but not seeing 7% of them returned?

Leif Skoogfors

[Peter Bennett-8]

> A point I have raised, which doesn't seem to worry any photographers
> or agencies, is what they do about all the digital files floating
> around? What policy does the agency have about chasing reuses in
> years to come? I have some agency sales on 3 year licences which are
> still being used by the client after 5 years but the agent wont chase
> them. Another, much smaller agency with a staff of six has someone
> chasing re-use fees almost full-time. It pays.
>
> Bob Croxford
>
> www.atmosphere.co.uk

Hi Bob,

I brought this up on this forum several years ago and recounted my days
working for for Ad agencies in the production department. Now it may differ
from agency to agency, but a few of the ones I saw had less than stellar
record keeping. One would be hard pressed to determine what kind of license
was originally used for archived ads and the accompanying images.

If you factor in the fact that meta data was not embedded in images until
the last few years, who knows how they would trace an image. That is why it
is so critical for all images to carry the embedded info.

Would Orphan Works affect archived images at an agency or is that stipulated
to only apply to images from the web?

Thanks.

Peter Bennett
Ambient Images Inc.
P: 310-312-6640

Specializing in New York and California images
http://www.californiastockphoto.com
http://www.newyorkstockphoto.com
http://www.greenstockphotos.com



 
   

[David Riecks]

At 09:33 AM 9/29/2009, Peter Bennett wrote:
>Now it may differ from agency to agency, but a few of the ones I saw
>had less than stellar record keeping. One would be hard pressed to
>determine what kind of license was originally used for archived ads
>and the accompanying images.

Peter:

I've not worked in an ad agency, but would concur that most of their
reporting or record keeping systems could use improvement.

>If you factor in the fact that meta data was not embedded in images
>until the last few years, who knows how they would trace an image.
>That is why it is so critical for all images to carry the embedded info.

Corbis has had metadata embedded since very early on... quite
possibly from the beginning. I know, as I've used this to help
clients track back images. The kicker with older images, is that if
they opened and resaved, some older image editing applications might
inadvertantly remove the metadata. If they had a copy of the orginal
file they downloaded, this typically had the info, but finding it was
often difficult.

I totally agree with you on how important it is for images to carry
embedded photometadata. That's why I helped to write the Metadata
Manifesto (http://metadatamanifesto.blogspot.com/), and wrote a
proposal for the Preserving Creative America program to educate
photographers on this issue. The Stock Artists Alliance was chosen
along with a handful of other groups, and we've been putting on a
series of seminars, and more importantly building a resource to show
both image creators, users, IT folks and others how to embed and read
this information that is now up at
http://www.photometadata.org/  Click on the Tutorials section for
details on how to do this with applications like Photoshop, Bridge,
Photo Mechanic and other applications to come. Some have video
tutorials up as well, and more will be added in the coming months.

It is important to understand, however, that digital images don't
typically have the type of license purchased as part of the metadata.
Thus it often requires tracing the paperwork that was issued to
determine what was covered in the license. If there was info in the
image that would help substantially, as images sometimes are moved
from RM to RF, and it could be that an image originally licensed
under RM, might have moved to RF after a decade. If you simply find
the image number and track it back to the current website, you might
never know for sure.

I know of one publisher who's IT staff spent the better part of a
year tracking back images and trying to get license information from
the vendor as well as their own invoice/receipt files, so they could
figure this out, once and for all. It was a huge effort, but few will
take that kind of time, instead figuring that they will end up paying
some fines if they are discovered... figuring that those fines will
amount to less than the cost to get their house in order.

>Would Orphan Works affect archived images at an agency or is that
>stipulated to only apply to images from the web?

The legislation as I last saw it, would have Orphan works cover any
image, illustration, movie, etc, that had no identifying information.
This wouldn't necessarily mean just digital files, but anything for
which attribution was unknown. For example if the 8 x 10 print had
the photographers name and copyright on the back, but it had been
drymounted so the back was no longer visible would probably be
considered an "orphan."

David

--
David Riecks  (that's "i" before "e", but the "e" is silent)
Need Keywords for your database? Get the Controlled Vocabulary Solution
http://controlledvocabulary.com/products/ support for a dozen of the
most popular imaging applications from Adobe Bridge to Photo Mechanic.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Tina Manley-3]

At 10:11 AM 9/29/2009, you wrote:
>The 7% of licenses that were abused amounted to a possible income
>equal to all of the other licenses granted. Yes, having licenses
>carefully monitored pays and I am shocked that these distributors
>allow work to go out the door, only looking at the immediate fee
>with out monitoring further. Imagine Hertz renting cars, but not
>seeing 7% of them returned?
>
>Leif Skoogfors

Those in the USA who are interested in copyright issues should read
and consider signing this letter:

http://www.copyrightalliance.org/letter/

Tina

Tina Manley
www.tinamanley.com

[Ernesto Burciaga-2]

I just got a D300S......
I can not seem to open the images in bridge as the same manner as my  
D2X.

Ernesto Burciaga

[MAGICSHOT]

You probably need to update the Camera Raw file in photoshop.  newer  
cameras don't work with older software.
 
Steve Goraum
 
 
 
In a message dated 10/11/2009 7:33:20 A.M. Central Daylight Time,  
eburciaga@... writes:

 
 
 
I just got a D300S......
I can not seem to open the images in bridge as  the same manner as my
D2X.

Ernesto Burciaga






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