Copyright Infringment

dnalsrammaj

jexygirl wrote: »

Hmm - from joe public none buisness POV.
I realise that you took the pic - but as joe public, it was my kid... and I paid you for doing so and also bought copies, which, i feel i can do with those copies as i please - give them to relatives, who will again do with them as they please.
If I chose, with todays technology, to reproduce that image, that I paid for, of my child, and someone would do that at a cheaper cost than the original photographer, I probably would do it.
So - look at your price for doing it, and also at how "copyright" your work really is - I mean its not like it is a vogue cover shot - its in someones living room - and whilst I respect your trade and what you do - I also put things in perspective - what "compensation" would you really feel was acceptable for someone having posted a FB pic, with a copy of an image you took, in the background, on a canvas that costs less than yours do?
If your price for the canvass was more acceptable, and the customer bought it from you, would you then be asking for credit on the FB pic? or royalties for every viewing? Or would it be ok because they got it from you?
Sorry if this sounds harsh, and I do truly recognise the talents and skills, my wedding photographers OWNED ! - however... works also both ways - an image they took of me, on my wedding day, they reproduced to a 2ft x 4ft canvass, and was the showpiece of their stand at a wedding exhibition... ( I am no model lol, far from it, but we had an unusual wedding which lent itself to showing off ability to adapt i guess!)
I paid them over £1000 to photograph our day, got a lovely album and a disc with every pic they took, as well as prints of the ones we chose, however, the picture was exhibited of me ( I detest having my pic taken) without my prior knowledge or consent (a friend visited the fair and told me) I asked them and they confirmed it, in a positive manner, saying how many leads they had because of it... (I was questioning why they were publicising a photo of me, without asking, and we had paid them to take OUR photos of OUR wedding, not to show them to random strnagers and they had never asked - but apparently, the fact they took them mean't they were theirs, not ours, of our own wedding.) Should I have therefore had commission? sued for privacy? sued for emotional trauma as I hate being photographed and to us it was personal? We signed a contract to employ them for our wedding, yet the pic then went on to win 2 awards, for them, really good for the buisness... without my permission - I would never have said it was ok because I so hate having my pic taken, but it was plastered all over the local papers twice, and also a national magazine that they were good enough to send me a copy of...
So, if you got that one in a million perfect shot... would you consider asking if it was ok to reproduce, or assume that you own it so its ok? Assuming they owned it is what the person has done that reproduced it with someone else cheaper than getting it from you.
I would put it down to experience, re read your contracts, but accpet that in todays society - you get what you pay for. You take the pic and get paid, what they then do, you cannot control - unless ofc it ends up on the cover of vogue and you hold the original, with proof...
jex

Thanks Jex, we do provide watermarked images to our clients for them to put on their facebook page and we do get all of our clients to sign permission forms for several of their images to be posted on our website.
I completely understand what you are saying but when we are making £8-£14 on the sale of a canvas after doing the shoot at a loss (to generate sales). And the trader that the customer chose to go to was selling the canvas £1 or £2 cheaper then i'm sure it is easy to see our annoyance... We are massively underpriced because of the type of customers we aim towards!

It would just be nice to avoid this same thing happening in future. We are considering taking the Venture route and only selling pictures which are securely framed.

dnalsrammaj

Skyhigh wrote: »

Ignorance is not an excuse for violating copyright law. You've taken the photo's, the copyright belongs to you*. Regardless of whether you had a clear 'Terms and Conditions' shown - someone cannot argue (legally and successfully) that they "just didn't know".

They can say that, fine, but then they should pay you fact they've used the image.

Maybe write a polite, but firm letter stating that you've been made aware that they have infringed your copyright and you require payment in liue for the canvas.
(Since they'd have to 'licence' the right to use the image from you, even if they didn't buy the canvas directly).

Or write a letter to say that they should pay £80, but as an act of good will say (as a compromise and good will), you will give them the £80 they owe against the purchase of more images.
(Providing they buy some within the next month).
Otherwise, they'll have to just pay you the straight £80.^^

Then at least you won't look "all bad" (even though they're in the wrong, people tend to take umbridge at getting caught out).

£80 for a canvas from a photographer is cheap as chips! They usually start at £120 (even for a small one).

It's not worth going down the Small Claims Court route as the amount is too small, unless you want to make a statement with this issue - but then you're risking good will/reputation - and is it worth it?

1. Get some stickers to put on the back of your photo's for future clients.
2. Get a Terms & Conditions on your website AND also thinki about giving a copy to your clients too.

Additionally, so many photographers miss this one....Because you're "chance" of selling photos back to a client diminishes over time:
A) 3 months after the photo shoot send customers a letter asking if they want more images?
6 months later (or a year), send them another one - maybe offering to sell them the 'copyright' to all the images on a DVD?
This could be because you have to 'delete' or 'archive' them as you need the space for more images on your PC.



* I paid our (fantastic) wedding photographer last year for a photo package, thenarranged tp buy the rights to all pictures he took so I could do what I wanted with them.

^ Blockbuster rental do this. If you're "late" with a dvd return, they ask you for £10 in late fee's OR you can opt to simply rent £10 worth of DVD's...which 'feels' better for the customer.

Skyhigh, some of the ideas in this are brilliant. I love the idea of selling them the original image files 6 months later because by this point (especially with baby photography because the subject will have changed in appearance so much!) we expect no more sales!
Thanks

esuhl

birkee wrote: »

If I buy a music CD, and copy it to my PC / MP3 player, then that's up to me. I've paid for the privilage of owning that music recording.

You might as well say, "If I choose to murder someone, then that's up to me. I paid for the sawn-off shotgun."!

It's currently unlawful to copy a CD that has been copyrighted to your PC or MP3 player. You have NOT paid for the priviledge of owning that music recording, you have paid for the right to use that recording in accordance with copyright law and any specific licensing rights/restrictions.

It's essentially the same with photographs - the person taking the photograph can copyright the image and determine what licensees may do by stipulating such rights in a licensing contract.

hippyadam

esuhl wrote: »

You might as well say, "If I choose to murder someone, then that's up to me. I paid for the sawn-off shotgun."

What a load of old tosh :P Copyright laws are so out of touch with modern life it's almost funny... Are we safe to say you've never photocopied a book or ripped a CD because your respect for copyright is that important? I doubt it frankly...

Surely the OP would be better served trying to convert the sale at the time of the shoot, maybe with a "deal" with a local canvas supplier, than complaining about what someone who has already paid for the service does with the image after the fact.

By all means, feel free to use legal avenues to protect your copyright of images featuring the customers own children... But don't expect to stay in business very long!

Joe Soap public has very little knowledge of copyright and i doubt they will take kindly to being chased after the fact for a minor infringement. And let's be clear here, it is a small infringement not large scale commercial use.

OP my advice is look at your business model and see if you can get a slice of the action in the future and look at it as a lesson learned

olivernaj

hippyadam wrote: »

By all means, feel free to use legal avenues to protect your copyright of images featuring the customers own children... But don't expect to stay in business very long!

You don't know how long we have been in business so you can't really say 'don't expect to be in business very long'. It's just the first time someone has been stupid enough to post there picture of their new canvas on a social networking site and word got back to us fast.

Yes they want cheap copies of there pictures when we sell them for £20 which I can fully understand as you can get them for £2 but you don't go and barter with primark for selling you a pair of leggings for £4 when they cost 20p to make, It's the way the business world works unfortunately.

pitkin2020

rosepetal wrote: »

Actually there are laws on both sides of this, and you would have been well within your rights to take this further and sue them if you chose as them owning the copyright of a professional photograph taken does not give tham the rights to use the picture for other purposes (such as advertising) without the models prior consent. This is called Model Release.

I'm sure there are better links but a quick search brings up this page: http://www.danheller.com/model-release.html



In regards to the OP's post I have to agree with the posters who said get some T&C's up asap, so that customers are at least informed, and that you may have to mark this one up to experience, as it wouldn't be financially viable to chase it further.

However if someone was copying your work in any volume or for profit, I would take it further, and if you are able to confirm who copied the picture you may be able to have words with them, but I don't see how you could actually take it any further on a more formal basis.

Depends what the contract stated i'm afraid the photographer probably had a clause that covered useage for commercial work, if you wanted the copyright you have to pay for it.

pitkin2020

hippyadam wrote: »

What a load of old tosh :P Copyright laws are so out of touch with modern life it's almost funny... Are we safe to say you've never photocopied a book or ripped a CD because your respect for copyright is that important? I doubt it frankly...

Surely the OP would be better served trying to convert the sale at the time of the shoot, maybe with a "deal" with a local canvas supplier, than complaining about what someone who has already paid for the service does with the image after the fact.

By all means, feel free to use legal avenues to protect your copyright of images featuring the customers own children... But don't expect to stay in business very long!

Joe Soap public has very little knowledge of copyright and i doubt they will take kindly to being chased after the fact for a minor infringement. And let's be clear here, it is a small infringement not large scale commercial use.

OP my advice is look at your business model and see if you can get a slice of the action in the future and look at it as a lesson learned

What people do and what people are supposed to do are two different things, the thing is the owner of the copyrighted material could claim for unauthorised usage and copyright infringement. There is no point in crying about you paying for something when your caught!!

Its regardless whether its music, data, photos or what ever the creator has the right to own the copyright. Whats to stop someone copying someones books adding a new cover and calling it there own?? Re-recording someones music and calling it there own??

Copyright isn't out of touch with the modern world, the problem is with the internet becoming so wide spread people don't think about reposting pictures, music etc that they don't own the copyright to, it has become the norm.

The way your talking if an old lady asked you hold her handbag you could freely dip your hand inside because its in your possession.

birkee

esuhl wrote: »

You might as well say, "If I choose to murder someone, then that's up to me. I paid for the sawn-off shotgun."!
Irrational. That's bringing third parties into the situation.
You put copyright infringement, and murder in a similar category?
Perhaps we should bring back the death penalty.

It's currently unlawful to copy a CD that has been copyrighted to your PC or MP3 player. You have NOT paid for the priviledge of owning that music recording, you have paid for the right to use that recording in accordance with copyright law and any specific licensing rights/restrictions.
Then lets sue Microsoft for providing the facility to do so in Windows Media Player. And all the other software suppliers too.

It's essentially the same with photographs - the person taking the photograph can copyright the image and determine what licensees may do by stipulating such rights in a licensing contract
Sure, they CAN copyright the image, and stop me selling it on to third parties, but the image purchased is my property, and if I want copies on my computer, or in an album, then that's up to me.

If I write information on a photograph, have I made unauthorised changes to somebody else's copyrighted photograph?

It's about wringing the most money out of Joe Public that they can get away with.

birkee

pitkin2020 wrote: »

What people do and what people are supposed to do are two different things, the thing is the owner of the copyrighted material could claim for unauthorised usage and copyright infringement. There is no point in crying about you paying for something when your caught!!

Its regardless whether its music, data, photos or what ever the creator has the right to own the copyright. Whats to stop someone copying someones books adding a new cover and calling it there own?? Re-recording someones music and calling it there own??

Copyright isn't out of touch with the modern world, the problem is with the internet becoming so wide spread people don't think about reposting pictures, music etc that they don't own the copyright to, it has become the norm.


The way your talking if an old lady asked you hold her handbag you could freely dip your hand inside because its in your possession.

Another irrational!
If the old lady has been paid for the privilage of you dipping into her handbag, and all you remove is the photographs you have paid for?
She's got plenty more if she wants them, AND she's been paid for them.

AND..... she wouldn't have been in possession of said photographs without YOUR contribution.

marvin

pitkin2020 wrote: »

Re-recording someones music and calling it there own??

I thought that was what modern music was about......never mind!


Attitudes like Birkees are indemic in the modern world, it is why you have to lock things up as many see an open door or something that is not nailed down as not wanted therefore theirs to take, bus shelters are only there to be vandalised and public toilets to be trashed. I am not saying Birkee you would do any of that but that it is the kind of thinking you have is the same as the thinking that creates it.

UK copyright law does give you the right to make one copy of a digital media for back-up purposes but it does not give the right for this to be used on an alternative source or more than once unless you have paid for it more than once (multiple licences). I notice some DVD's now come with Digital copy so you can load it to your mobile device should you wish, this is something you pay for in a more expensive product.

Just becasue you can do it does not make it legal.