Rights of the Public and the Press - Court Rules For Photogs

I've spent my fair share of time on movie sets. Sometimes, I was the unit photographer, and in other instances, I was tasked with covering the news going on in the community. One of my early assignments had me covering Tom Cruise one Halloween in Georgetown, a tony part of Washington DC, when he was filming a scene for A Few Good Men. Then, myself and a colleague were met with blankets and scrims tossed up in-front of us as Cruise moved about the street, causing us to have to head to a second story window amidst an ongoing Halloween party and some kind revelers who let us "hang out" and make images above the scrims.

On June 24th, Photo District News reported 'Judge Orders Ft. Lauderdale to Allow Photos Near Movie Set' which followed up on their original article 'Ft. Lauderdale Photo Ban: Bought and Paid for by Hollywood?' where photographers were literally banned from places that the general public was allowed to walk freely upon.

The press enjoys not only the full rights and privileges of the general public, but also an expanded right as guaranteed by the first amendment. Thankfully, a judge found on behalf of the press in this emergency ruling. If only I had known about things like emergency rulings way back then, my images of Tom Cruise might be that might better.

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Court Rules Photo Credit Removal a DMCA Violation

Many photographers try to make the lame assertion that they don't care about money, just seeing their work being used, or a photo credit, is all they care about. Well, for those lame-o's, and the rest of us who actually earn a living making pictures, there is now money to be gained when someone removes your photo credit.

As reported by the Copyright Litigation Blog (here), the employees of subjects in a photograph infringed on the photographers rights when scanning the magazine that resulted from the a photo assignment and posting the image online.

While the joke may well still be "will work for photo credit", the reality is "photo credits can work for you."

Yet, friends, one more reason you should be registering your work. Lame-o or not, this is business folks. Business.

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VIDEO: How To Establish Assignment Rates for Photographers

A few weeks ago, PhotoShelter was promoting their "Starting a Photography Business" guide, and asked me to say a few words on how to establish fair and reasonable rates for assignments being done. Here's a video of that interview, which they originally posted on their blog, here.

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VIDEO: Typical Business Mistakes Made By Photographers

The good folks over at PhotoShelter interviewed me for a piece they called - "The Typical Business Mistakes Made By Photographers " and posted the video below as a part of that. Enjoy the video!

Common Business Mistakes Made By Photographers: Interview with John Harrington from PhotoShelter.com on Vimeo.

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STOLEN: Photographer's Rights of Iconic Image

As a youth in the 80's, the Run DMC and Jam-Master Jay were all the rage. The beginning of mainsteam rap that ushered in all the rest.

Photo District News reported here on the news that the photographer has won his lawsuit against an infringer who made all manner of reproductions.

Carolyn Wright, over at PhotoAttorney.com provided some insights worth reading as well, here.

In short, protect your rights. Register your work. You never know when your work will be stolen, and having done the leg work necessary to protect yourself will give you all the tools necessary to protect your rights to the fullest extent of the law.

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TwitPic - As Expected! Selling YOUR Photos

It comes as little surprise that TwitPic announced they are now licensing images that photographers transmit over the TwitPic service. They, of course, have the right to do so, and we stand by the position we first put forth when we wrote about it last year (Morel v. AFP, AFP v. Morel - Which Way Blows the Wind?, 10/5/2010).

The model continues - 'offer a free service, or a limited one, build up a critical mass of users, change (or enforce existing) terms, and then aggregate the users' content for profit and gain.'

The New York Times reported here, and Photo District News wrote both 'Time to Quit Using TwitPic?' (5/23/11) and 'Twitpic: Laundering Images of Owners’ Rights' (5/24/11) about the realities of how the "free" model is affecting your intellectual property.

South Park has a hilarious show on the issue whereby no one actually reads terms of service here, as always, taking the issue to it's absurd endgame.

This just underscores the reality that there really is NOTHING that is free. While something may appear free, you are always giving something up when you accept something for free. Time, privacy, or, in this case, your rights.

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PicScout Acquired by Getty Images

Getty Images has made an interesting acquisition in buying the PicScout image recognition service a few weeks ago, and frankly, it's a smart move. Getty Images, with millions of images, and a dwindling per image revenue stream, must find alternative revenue streams, and focusing on infringements is wise.

In 2007, when Getty was publicly traded, and had to do things like conference calls with investors, Getty CEO Jonathan Klein said "the way we see the world today quite simply, is that our core stock photography business has stopped growing, in fact, it's declining. Our number 1 priority is to stabilize that business...we're trying to stablize the core stock business, at the same time, trying continuing to grow the other businesses." (PBN - GYI's JDK: "our core stock photography business has stopped growing, in fact, it's declining.", 9/20/07). So, the new business seems to be pursuing infringements?

Also back in September of 2007, the Stock Artists Alliance released a white paper - “Infringements of Stock Images and Lost Revenues.”, that they did with....wait for it....Pic Scout, revealed some interesting figures. We wrote (God Save the Alliance, 9/07), "SAA’s study found that 9 out of 10 images they found were infringements upon RM images. That’s a lot of infringements! What’s worse, because of the low-dollar-per-image issue, it seems that tracking infringements of RF isn’t cost effective, giving infringers essentially a “license” to infringe." We also cited from the report back in 2007 "According to Selling Stock’s recent count, there are just over 1 million RM images on gettyimages.com. If we apply the 1:15 annual infringement rate observed in our study, we arrive at an estimate of approximately 67,000 infringements in a one –year period."

PicScout certainly is the industry leader when it comes to image recognition. They also are the provider of image recognition services to the PLUS Coalition's PLUS Registry, which positions not just PicScout, but also Getty Images, to lead the industry in the long term.

Frankly, all photographers would benefit from Getty being on top of their rights management, and the pursuit of infringers. The more infringers are pursued, the more they will think twice infringing, whether it's a Getty image, or that of a freelancer.

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End of Term at the White House News Photographers Association

After two terms as President of the White House News Photographers Association, my term ends with our 90th Anniversary Gala, May 14th, 2011. It has been my pleasure to serve the members during our meetings and discussions with the White House over access issues, as well as meeting individually with many of the members to discuss how to grow their businesses. It is with great ] appreciation that I thank our Executive Director, Heidi Elswick for her service, and especially board member Jon Elswick for her continuing service to the membership.

There is much work to be done by the board in the coming year. As my tenure was wrapping up, I found my last full day as President, handling press calls that resulted in (or followed up on) articles in the Washington Post (here), Los Angeles Times (here), Politico (here), and Poynter (here), to name as few. This issue will continue, and the access (and retrictions thereof) will continue as the White House shifts into campaign mode in the coming months.

Best wishes to the incoming President, Ron Sachs, and the board as they continue to serve the members of the WHNPA, who are truly, the Eyes of History.

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LOOK3 - Festival of the Photograph - 2011

This year, the Festival of the Photograph returns to Charlottesville, Virginia, June 9th through the 11th, featuring photographers
Nan Goldin, Antonin Kratochvil, and Massimo Vitali, as well as many others. For more information, click here, and to get a flavor of the event, check out an overview video we did during the 2009 event (they were on hiatus in 2010), below:

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Copyright: Know it or Blow it

American Photographic Artists has an excellent program that is ongoing - Copyright, Know It or Blow It - which is travelling the country, and Topics to be discussed include:

-- What To Do When Your Image Has Been Infringed

-- How And When To Choose An Attorney

-- Putting Copyright To Work For You

I have spoken (and am speaking) at several of them as time and my schedule permits. To learn more about the FREE program, visit the APA site here.

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