Comments on: What to do when asked to sell a picture on Flickr

By: Vail

Vail — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:44:27 +0000

I used to be asked a lot for my band photos – usually by fans or amateur authors wanting to include them in a book or website. I limit the catalog of music photos I put online now for that reason – because in these cases I never felt it was appropriate to ask for payment. In the case where an online music magazine wanted to use it, I setup a stock program or worked out a case by case basis, usually something like 5$ per live shot sent to paypal. Credit, on the other hand, is insulting to offer a photographer – if someone wants to use your photo, credit is a requirement! In commercial cases, of course, you can work out a deal to allow individuals to use a photo without a copyright notice by granting them a specific license, specifically in cases where an image is used as a design element in something bigger.
Nowadays, if I am asked to sell an image, it depends if the image is part of a fine art collection, or just one of the hundreds of miscellaneous ones. I recommend this for you – decide if the image in question is part of something you ever plan to put into a gallery or book. If the answer is probably not – sell it, but don’t ever sell exclusive rights. Use stock image programs instead and direct inquiries to your stock sales site.

By: StephenS

StephenS — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:26:00 +0000

Often useful to know the intended end-use of the image. Whether professional or amateur, there are some clients (companies/organizations) that you just might not want using your images, directly or indirectly identifying you to be aligned with them.

By: Daniel*1977

Daniel*1977 — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:20:13 +0000

It seems to me that this is an option on Flickr, which prohibits the saved images by others.
Then everyone must ask for the original photo. We have some control.

By: photokunstler

photokunstler — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:01:54 +0000

So – all rights reserved ought to mean just that, that I reserve all rights to my photos.
Yes?
That’s what I have on Flickr, which I don’t really use anymore. But it would be a good idea to also state that on my blog…

Great, and obviously a thought-provoking, article!

By: Mike Wasylik

Mike Wasylik — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:52:41 +0000

I had to face this challenge a couple of times myself, first when the New York Times asked to publish this picture of the FBI Citizens Academy and later when a local guide website wanted to publish this picture of the Austin Convention Center. Fortunately, I know a little about U.S. copyright law, and my wife, also a lawyer, practices mainly in that area. We were able to negotiate deals that preserved our rights to the photos while still gaining excellent exposure for these two works. Both publishers were very professional - each had a proposed contract that required only minimal tweaking from our point of view - and the NYT even paid a small royalty. A lot of people here are asking for sample contracts - remember that contracts will, as they must, vary depending on the laws of the country and state or province you live in.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:30:53 +0000

You can use a service like licensestream. This service recognizes the difficulties of image licensing in the internet age. It costs very little, handles the licensing etc for you (you get 95% of the end price), and pricing is already set at industry standards (you can override the pricing if you want to). The contract is actually between the buyer and Licensestream, so amateur and busy professional photogrpahers don’t need to get caught up in the paperwork :

http://www.licensestream.com/licensestream2/Portal/products/comparison.aspx

At such little cost, a single sale will recover the annual fee.

The service also utilizes PicScout which embeds a code in your image and scans the internet for illegal use: http://www.picscout.com/

The service is easy to use, takes licensing off your hands, and even has pre-written emails to demand payment from people using images illegally. You can also create html code easily which can be embed in own website making licensing from own website easy.

Here’s one example I am involved in with a couple of photographer colleagues. It is proving valuabe:

http://www.licensestream.com/LicenseStream2/Store/storeHtml.aspx?id=86a5be7b-ce24-4712-970e-bbdbcb9a167e

Here’s an example of a license: http://www.colouriaconnect.de/english/2009/5/29/illegal-use-of-my-image.html

Don’t expect this to be like an agency with buyers visiting the site in droves. That is certainly not the case. It is more a tool to address the issue of easy licensing if someone asks you, tracking illegal use, and providing tools to do own marketing if you want to. Also, it has search engine publication tools which really do seem to work well.

We (my partners and I) like the potential of this approach, and it has solved some of the issues listed above for us.

Mark

ps I do not work for licensestream (I am paying a fee!). This is not an advert!

By: Daniel*1977

Daniel*1977 — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 08:28:59 +0000

Interesting, I was “lucky”.
Some of my photos was used somewhere.
I’m only amateur, so it is not important to me. This is a great honor that someone noticed me.
Unfortunately, not all ask for permission to use.
I use CC licenses – http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en
Sometimes I wonder whether to change it to another, or even reserve the right entirely.
people who asked me about the pictures, asked to send a link to the work done – no one ever sent nothing!
Of course, not everyone earn on my photos or I do not know.
Photos that I found were signed Fortunately, they come from my gallery.

By: Photo Roman

Photo Roman — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:37:41 +0000

Greetings,

Great info and advice for those just starting out. As a wildlife photographer for over 25 years, I can still remember my first published photo. Everything was manual back then. I was in the “readers’ photos” secttion of a local outdoor magazine. There was no money, but the satisfaction alone was worth all of my years of work.

Later that year, reality set in. I improved my work and also realized that if it was good enough to be published, it was good enough to be paif for. Magazines are a business and they don’t give away free copies just so that you can read them. Neither should you give away your work. You have probably spent countless hours, and money to get that shot. It has value and if someone wants it, they should pay for it accordingly.

Roman

By: Jackie

Jackie — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:26:21 +0000

carl, how did you “find” your pictures all over facebook? how does one “find” their photos out there online?

By: Chris Honiball

Chris Honiball — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:17:39 +0000

Just read all the comments!

Good points about making sure that you have the rights/proper releases to sell the pictures, and I apologize for not including that – it is very, very important.

Also, the reason I did not post a sample contract was simply because I could not find a good one. The best advice I could find was to “consult a lawyer”. Perhaps some more searching would yield something, but I have yet to find it.