How would you reply to this?... This guy wants me to take pictures of golf courses, 20-30 pictures per course. And he wants to have basically full copyright to the photos because he intends to print/frame/sell prints to club members in addition to selling the images to the course, etc for their own brochures and things. If it was just a matter of licensing the images to the golf course, that would be easy enough, but he wants the rights to PRINT my photos and frame / sell them as well... The fees are going to get expensive, but then he is saying he's never had another photographer asking about licensing (staff photographers? he does mostly aerial stuff, and he pays his photographers $225 per course, and they do like 5-6 courses in a day since it only takes about an hour to do the aerial photos per course)... It could be an interesting project, but I'm not going to short-change myself. Thoughts?


MY EMAIL

Hey XXXXXXX,

I am working on the estimate for you and wanted to get clarification
on one thing that has a big impact on pricing. When it comes to
licensing the photos and determining usage rates, normally I will give
rights to advertising, editorial and promotional (print an online in
US). However, if I'm not mistaken, you would like rights to actually
print and sell prints of the courses as well. Now, the problem here is
that sort of usage can get very expensive, and I'm going to guess that
charging a percentage of sales is just logistically not going to happen.

I want to be clear that this sounds like a very interesting
assignment, and I would very much like to be chosen as the
photographer. So I hope you don't take this email the wrong way, I
simply want to find the right way to approach this that makes sense
for everyone.

Is the majority of the usage going to be by the club in promotional
materials, website etc? Do the print sales represent a significant
part of your business? I just want to make sure I have a good sense of
how things work so I can estimate accurately for you.

Kurtis

- - - - -

HIS REPLY

Kurtis, I appreciate you trying to give me the best quote possible. I'm
having a little hang on the licensing part of things. Basically it's pretty
simple. I want to hire a photographer for his skills of taking good quality
pictures, that's it. This is not like NFL or NHL snapping photo of stars and
remarketing their photos. I'm not a photographer and I don't live that
lifestyle. But I have never ran into anyone who I've hired in the past that
has been so worried about the rights to those pictures or additional costs.
I'm protecting myself as company and trying to protect the golf course as
well. I've got competitors in the past who have hired photographers I've
used just to turn around and buy the pictures they took for me and then I
see my pictures displayed on their websites. I'm contracted through the golf
course to provide this service, I hire someone to take the pictures, I
photo-shop them myself, I print, frame and them, then sell them to the
course to sell to their members. Like I said I've never ran into this
situation before and now I'm afraid this could be a problem. Again I'm sorry
if I'm coming off as harsh and maybe its cause I'm not the professional
photographer. But out of the 20-30 guys I've hired over the years this has
never came up because their doing a paid service for me, and that's where it
ends. They want nothing to do with the pictures they've taken except maybe
if they want to put a couple in their portfolio's. Maybe I'm confusing
myself. Once you take the pictures I want the pictures and don't want you to
sell them to the course, or sell pictures yourself or market those for the
course's. But thanks again for your time.

Why does he keep saying he's so many before? But I have never ran into anyone who I've hired in the past that, But out of the 20-30 guys I've hired over the years this has, etc.
Perhaps he's been through so many guys before because they wise up to what's going on.
He wants your skills, so he can make some money. That's what it sounds like to me unless I am reading this wrong?

I think you should let him hire one of the other 20 to 30 guys he has used in the past (which is a red flag as it looks like he goes through photographers pretty quickly). No matter how much you want to talk about licensing or rights, he doesn;t care and he doesnt want to hear about and no amount of "educating him" is going to get you the job. I wouldn't waste too much time on the estimate, make it fair flat rate, one big number at the bottom of the estimate and move on.
It's up to you if it's worthwhile to shoot it, hand over the files and go cash the check. Not every job has to be a big broohaha over rights.

Sketchy. He wants to play middleman. You do the work. He sells it, pays you an upfront fee and gets to profit on an ongoing basis.

This is likely a business model that will increasingly pervade the photo world as amateur photographers-with limited understanding of copyright and licensing-come forward to take these kinds of jobs.

It's up to you if the project and potential payoff are worth selling rights to these photos for well less than they would be worth in a more traditional arrangement. It sounds like he is trying to suggest that if you ask for a high fee for selling the copyright, he will simply seek out someone cheaper.

Its called exclusivity. If he doenst want the pics to be used by someone else, then he needs to buy that right. Otherwise, you own the pic and could sell it as stock, as fine-art, as a postcard, etc . . .

Yeah I know what my rights are... but I don't have a clue how to explain this to him. I don't think I'm going to get the job, but I can at least educate him a bit in the [impossible scenario] that he might do business in a more professional way. :P

Licensing doesn't have to be super-expensive for the promotional side of things that is part of how he intends to use them... but selling prints of -my- images is a whole different story.

I'm trying to find some articles or something that outline how this sort of thing works so he can see that I'm not just trying to bend him over, if that's really what he thinks.

Micky Bill: Ahh! Great minds...

Also, TTLKurtis, I would tend to agree with this: "Not every job has to be a big broohaha over rights."

$1500 or more for a day of work flying above golf courses doesn't sound so bad, as long as you are happy with how the work will be presented (with or without your name).

BTW, I won't be doing aerial shots, that's what "his photographers" specialize in. He wants to start getting into doing ground shots. So I'd probably rig my ballhead on top of a ladder for many shots if I was going to do this, with a remote release to bracket my exposures.

He also mentioned at one point that he would like to have someone shadow me I think so they can 'see how a professional does it' - he mentioned it really quickly and didn't bring it up again so I could be mistaken... Obviously, I'm not cool with TRAINING someone for my normal rate, to take business away from me, that's for sure. If I'm going to do 20 courses or something, when I have time, this could be a worthwhile thing for me to do even if it's a little lower than I would normally price.

But I'm not going to give away the farm so to speak.

- - -

Excerpt from Pricing photography: the complete guide to assignment and stock prices (found via google)

WORK-FOR-HIRE
An issue that many clients continue to force is that of work-for-hire. Very simply, the Copyright Act of 1976 gives authors limited monopoly power over the work they produce. This means that authors can decide who can use their work, what it will cost to use it, and that no one can reproduce it without the author's permission. If copyright protection weren't extended to authors, as soon as their work as made public, some unscrupulous operator could freely reproduce the work and make money from the author's efforts. The exception to author's copyright protection are those cases where work is created by employees. The employer owners the copyright under a principle known as made for hire. The work-for-hire provision was added to the Copyright Act to satisfy publishers who claimed that, because they paid salaries and benefits, they should own the copyright to works created by employees.

It's not that unusual really.

Isn't it kind of the same as the contract between the main photog and the second shooter?

On the other hand I wonder if the buyer doesn't assume that he will get the copyright to the photos. Even with an exclusive royalty free license he wouldn't be allowed to resell the photos to the golf course (prints - yes, digital files - no).

I don't think $225 / course is reasonable for that kind of usage.

Second shooting is a little different, because usually that's either someone who is an aspiring pro who is getting training, or it may just be another pro and you both help each other out so it's a reciprocal relationship. What he's looking to do is do none of the work, pay a small amount of money and then cash in on my efforts by essentially acting as my agent (if you think about the flow of things).

And you're dead-on about the digital files not being transferable... he'd have to pay extra for that right as well.

This job seems like it would be a licensing nightmare if I do things the way I -should- do it. Doing it any other way doesn't help anyone but the client.

And $225 is absolutely not enough to hire me for photos of a golf course. That's not even enough to get me to show up, let alone the usage fees.

He's not a photographer (he doesn't live that life style) but he does want to photo shop all the pictures, print, frame, and sell them. HMM. The fact that he wants to send one of his people out with you is a clear indication that you will be training next years photographer.

I also told him, BTW, that I don't hand over RAW files, ever. I do my own photoshopping, thank you very much. Because I do live that lifestyle, ha.

I think I'm going to reply with this for starters...


Hi XXXXXXX,

I understand your concerns - I've found that most clients don't have a solid understanding of how things work when they first contact me. Rest assured that I'm not asking for anything that isn't standard in the industry.

Out of curiosity, are all the other photographers you work with actual employees? That makes a big difference if they're on-staff versus contracted externally.

Licensing and usage fees can get complicated, so to help illustrate, here's a quick excerpt from a book entitled "Pricing Photography: The Complete Guide to Assignment and Stock Prices"

WORK-FOR-HIRE
An issue that many clients continue to force is that of work-for-hire. Very simply, the Copyright Act of 1976 gives authors limited monopoly power over the work they produce. This means that authors can decide who can use their work, what it will cost to use it, and that no one can reproduce it without the author's permission. If copyright protection weren't extended to authors, as soon as their work as made public, some unscrupulous operator could freely reproduce the work and make money from the author's efforts. The exception to author's copyright protection are those cases where work is created by employees. The employer owners the copyright under a principle known as made for hire. The work-for-hire provision was added to the Copyright Act to satisfy publishers who claimed that, because they paid salaries and benefits, they should own the copyright to works created by employees.

I would walk away from this. And I wouldn't bother with trying to educate him on any part of it either. He doesn't get it and he's so hung up on the "deal" he's gotten before that whatever you ask for, no matter how reasonable, is going to be perceived as too much. Blech... Sorry Kurtis...

TTLKurtis wrote:
Yeah I know what my rights are... but I don't have a clue how to explain this to him. I don't think I'm going to get the job, but I can at least educate him a bit in the [impossible scenario] that he might do business in a more professional way. :P


I really wonder why photographers feel that they need to "educate" a client in how to run their business in order to make more profit for photographers. Why do you feel that you know his business better than he does, he probably makes up the $225 per course in one print sale all the sales after that are profit.
He is buying photography as a commodity and selling it as product, buy low, sell high. He doesn't need a potential vendor to tell him what to pay,, he will just find another vendor, hence the 30 other photographers in his past.

I wouldn't get out of bed for $225.

There are instances where I will shoot for a day rate where the client will have usage of all images, but they are always for their marketing/advertising - they NEVER have have license to sell them.

I think someone has to say something. He can ignore it if he wants, but at least someone should tell him he's wrong and why. I'm not asking anything unreasonable, and I haven't even quoted him any licensing fees yet. He knows that it's going to cost him at LEAST twice what he pays his aerial guys per course to hire me, and it will realistically be a good deal more than that.


Interesting article by the way:
http://emeraldbayphoto.com/blog/labels/licensing%20rights.html

Maybe you just need to word it or present it differently.

Instead of :
-$500 for time and expenses
-$500 for licensing

Why not:
-$1000 for time and usage of images

Just make it clear that they do not have the rights to sell/transfer/yada with the images, that they are only for their usage.

I was thinking about that, but then it also makes the client wonder why your rate is so high. It does often help to break it into chunks so they understand -why- it's X amount.

The problem is, they DO want to sell/transfer the images. That's basically the -only- thing they want the images for, is to transfer them to the golf course(s).

Educating someone like this is a waste of time. As long as he can continue to find "photographers" willing to do what he wants under his terms and conditions he doesn't care about licensing and usage. Chances are he's simply going to get tired with your efforts and move on until he gets what he needs. If its not something your considering, be the first to move on.

BTW, for what it's worth, I -would- like to get this assignment. I think I could get some pretty cool shots, and it would be a nice (and impressive, I think) addition to my Commercial portfolio.

I'm not going to do it for peanuts... but I'm not looking to get any more than I deserve either.