Advice on image useage terms.

[Tom Hicken]

Hi all - long time listener, first time caller.

I'm a Loyalist student who got a contract job for the summer as a Jr photo editor with a travel company.  My boss is on vacation for the next little bit and I could really use some advice. 

Basically I received a photo request to be used in a magazine article which is pretty normal, but the image use terms (in red) raised a red flag.  I don't know if this is standard, but it seemed a bit broad:

Dear Tom,
 
I am an Online Photo Assistant for ************* Publishing . We are currently working on an online slideshow entitled "World's Most Bikeable Wine Regions" for *******.com. Biking in Piemonte is one of the featured trips.
 
Would you be able to send over some images for this feature? All images should be 800 x 600 pixels, and please provide the credit information. You can email them back to me as attachments or provide me with a link to images. Please let me know if this is possible or refer me to someone who has access to images.
 
Below is our standard rights agreement for the image use.
 
In addition to possible publication on ********* website, ************ Publishing (and its affiliates and licensees) may reproduce, distribute, display and publish the photographs you provide in and via webpages, websites and other publications, products and services that contain, exhibit, or arebranded with the name or logo of the magazine or website, and use the photographs for the promotion of the foregoing.
 
By providing the photographs to *********** you thereby confirm that you grant *********** Publishing the rights to use the photographs as described above, you have those rights to grant, you represent that such use will not violate the rights of any third party, and you agree to take full responsibility for the same.
 
We look forward to receiving your confirmation by a simple response to this e-mail and/or the receipt of your photographs.
 
Please feel free to contact me with any questions and thanks so much for your time!

My response:

We would love to be featured in *********, but the usage terms for our images to be used by ************ Publishing are extraordinarily broad.  Do you have any other terms to work with?  We would be happy to provide content for the online and print articles, but we have an obligation to our photographers and guides to provide compensation if published elsewhere.  In this regard, granting an unlimited reproduction license is not desirable but we are open to other terms you may have.
 
Please get back to me and let me know so I can start processing your request.

Over to them:

Thanks for your email. We can definitely work something out.  There are a few reasons as to why we ask for such broad images rights. We sometimes share certain article or slideshows with our editorial partners, so in case of syndication, we want to be able to share images as well as the text of a slideshow. Also, we try to obtain rights for our other publications as well. For example, if ********** (another *********** Publishing magazine) wants to run a similar piece on their website, we can use images we've already received. It saves us the time of having to re-obtain photos.

Do you think we'd be able to use the photography or either of those instances?

What are people's thought who have more experience in this area?  Any suggestions or advice, or is this standard? 

[Fred Lum]

this is a problem for me...

"We sometimes share certain article or slideshows with our editorial partners"

If they pay for partner useage *probably* fine but if not, well how many partners do they have and what are their circulation #'s ? Could be lots of useage for no extra compensation.

Warren ?

[Moe Doiron]

Basically you are signing over the uncontrolled use and possible re-sale of your images by agreeing to this. There's no mention of money or rates. I'm guessing they assume they would get your images for free and then have the right to publish, pass along to others and perhaps even sell for profit (syndication is mentioned).

So unless there is a really great benefit to the travel company to have a credit on their site I don't see how this is good.

[Warren Toda]

Is this standard?  No. But it is standard that many companies want free photography.

My standard policy is that Nikon has to give me free gear. So far, Nikon has had a problem adhering to my standard policy.

So unless there is a really great benefit to the travel company to have a credit on their site I don't see how this is good.

Without knowing your travel company or its agreement with its photographers, it's tough to say what to do.

If these folks contacted, say Getty, do you think Getty would agree to this for free?

Getty charges ~$100 to $200 per picture for a royalty-free image like this. But Getty has only six royalty-free images that suit this topic.


Departures magazine is lifestyle editorial but the purpose of Amex Pub is to encourage people to buy stuff using their Amex card so Amex can make more money.  Cheapest print ad in Departures print mag is ~$30,000  (1/3 page B+W) and that's just for one edition. The mag is also published in five other international regions and each region has multiple editions. It costs extra (tens of thousands of dollars) to advertise in another edition/another region.

Amex Pub is part of a multi-billion-dollar corporation and it produces five print magazines along with many other products. Each magazine has its own web site. Each site (with paid advertising) gets ~20(?) million views per month. Pictures are seemingly kept online forever?

Departures also sends out ~50,000 weekly e-mail newsletters (with paid advertising).


How did Amex Pub get to be such a profitable publishing company? Paid advertising and free content. 

On one hand, this wealthy company should be ashamed of itself for expecting free handouts. On the other hand, a lot of its content, at least online, is just crappy fluff pieces with minimal value other than to fill empty pages; a great example of "fast and cheap".


Departures also does (or at least, did) paid photo assignments. A long time ago, I believe the space rate was about $400 per 1/4 page photo and ~$2,200 for a cover, against a ~$900+ assignment fee. And that was for just one edition.

I did jobs for the Canadian magazine of a well-known loyalty card. It paid, (9 years ago), ~$1,200, plus expenses, per job to produce an inside picture. My point is that these corporate mags have lots of money.



If your travel company can benefit (link to your site + maybe other information) AND you have the rights to license the pictures for free AND you have releases for any people in the pictures (if applicable) AND you licence for use only on the Departures site, then it might be okay.

Although, the photographers don't benefit from their pictures. Why should they help out a multi-billion-dollar company?

[Liam Maloney]

Warren's post is spot on. This might be a good time for me to plug his blog, which is full of great information about the business side of photography:

http://www.warrentoda.com/toronto-photographer/

L

[Tom Hicken]

Excellent post Warren and Moe - thanks for your insight. 

It's pretty customary for us to provide content if a publication is writing a story on us or one of our trips.  I get that they're looking free fluff to fill their pages but we also get exposure so it's a fair trade.  What isn't fair is if they want to take our images and run free with them so I've tried to word this as best I can:

"We can permit a one time limited license for the purpose of the "World's Most Bikeable Wine Regions" slideshow on **********.com, on the condition that *************** Publishing makes mention of ************ in the image cutline and/or in the accompanying article, and may not be used to promote our competitors.  If you require content for articles or slideshows in the future, feel free to contact us at that time and we would be happy to oblige with the same conditions mentioned above." 

How does that hold up?

Warren: good luck with Nikon    I started reading your blog, but I'm at work so it's been bookmarked.

[Warren Toda]

It's pretty customary for us to provide content if a publication is writing a story on us or one of our trips. 

That makes sense.

Your clause sounds okay because you do *not* want the publication, or any of its "partners", re-using the pictures for anything else, for example: story on bicycle rentals, vacation fashion, travel insurance, etc.

Some newspapers are infamous for this (re-using handout pictures for all sorts of things).

[Tom Hicken]

Warren - thanks very much, and also for the bit of research in the previous post.  In the end they agreed to the terms I sent them.