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This Photograph Is Not Free

petapixel.com

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Re: This Photograph Is Not Free

#211

Post by synth »

gph wrote: post #208
synth wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as stupid; to expect people not to sue you if you take someone else's intellectual property.

Even more stupid; expecting the legal system of different countries to fairly and efficiently protect your IP, especially if you don't already have large stacks of money to buy lawyers with.

Wait, lawyers cost money and the legal systems of different countries aren't perfect in every way? Welp time to roll over and let other people take my work for free without incident.

Re: This Photograph Is Not Free

#212

Post by ghshephard »

Fundamentally - he should be paid because he has something valuable that other people want, and has value to them. The cost of his equipment, or skill as a photographer are immaterial - at the end of the day, at least in the western world, the amount that you can reasonably expect to charge for something is the intersection of what you are prepared to sell it for, and what someone is willing to pay for it. The fact that the person taking the picture paid $1,000, $10,000 or $100,000 for the resources (Training, Equipment, Time, etc...) to take the picture is completely irrelevant.

I took pictures at the Company Party last night. My EOS 7D cost me $1600. My Canon 17-55 IS USM lens cost me $1000. My MacBook Air Cost me $1600. Aperture Cost me $80. Acorn Cost me $50. My Card Flash Cost me $95. My DaneElec SDHC USB 2.0 card reader cost me $14.99, etc..

I spent 90 minutes taking pictures, 2 hours triaging and selecting, and 1 hour tweaking/adjusting those pictures - ending up with 20 out of about 400 original shots that the company placed in their event album.

I was paid $0 - because that was the intersection of what I wanted for them, and what the company was prepared to pay for them.

In all things financial - that should be the driving force as to what a transaction should take place at. If I can sell 100 megabytes software that costs $0.001 to transmit over the internet for $25,000 then that is fine as long as the buyer is will to pay $25,000 for the software and I'm willing to sell it for that much.

Re: This Photograph Is Not Free

#213

Post by gph »

synth wrote: post #211
gph wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more stupid; expecting the legal system of different countries to fairly and efficiently protect your IP, especially if you don't already have large stacks of money to buy lawyers with.

Wait, lawyers cost money and the legal systems of different countries aren't perfect in every way? Welp time to roll over and let other people take my work for free without incident.

More like, don't act surprised when things you put on the internet are copied and don't try to push unjust restrictions because of it.

Re: This Photograph Is Not Free

#214

Post by tlogan »

I'm little confused here. Yes - you must not steal some others photos and post it. But this kind of photography is more like art and the bar for making it worth actual money is quite high - it has to have soul, meaning, etc.

tl;dr:

* Don't steal other people crap even it you consider it worthless

* Don't assume your stuff is worth something just because you spend some money making it

Re: This Photograph Is Not Free

#215

Post by dchest »

gergles wrote: post #201
dchest wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is not my first language, but dictionary tells me that I used the term "demand" correctly: 5. (Law) (a) The asking or seeking for what is due or claimed as due. ... [1913 Webster]

The point was that you don't need any law to demand money for something. Copyright may legitimize your demand (in some people's eyes) but you can demand anything for anything. I demand you pay me $20 for the privilege of reading my posts. See, it worked fine. I have the same legitimacy as anyone else that asks for money. You can choose to pay it or not. There's no law that suggests I can charge you, but I can certain…

I still don't see the point. Are you arguing whether the author could ask for payments for copies? Sure he could. Even if there were no copyright laws. But only because of the copyright laws he can demand to be paid. Or you're arguing that "demand" doesn't necessary mean "ask for what is due, legally"? In this case I think what I meant was clear enough, since you seem to recognize that there's a nuance. If every word had only one strictly clear meaning, we wouldn't have numbered lists in dictionaries. (By the way, in my first sentence, by "point" I didn't mean a punctuation mark, nor did I mean an indefinitely small space.)

Re: This Photograph Is Not Free

#216

Post by swang »

joebadmo wrote: post #190
swang wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has figured out a way to get paid. He takes incredible pictures people want to use for their company and sells it to them. He has also mentioned that people who give stuff away for free or "credit" are just burned again later on because other companies don't want to pay, they want to "credit" As someone who considers himself an amateur photographer, there is no way I could just "reproduce" that for free to someone…

He takes incredible pictures people want to use for their company and sells it to them. That might work for him, but I doubt it's viable for photographers in general, at least in the future. He has also mentioned that people who give stuff away for free or "credit" are just burned again later on because other companies don't want to pay, they want to "credit" Like I said, those companies aren't going to pay no matter…

I had a long post written but I think for brevity sake I'll only include what I thought is relevant.

> In fact, to make it personal: I'm an aspiring writer. I write on my blog and I just got a couple of pieces published in the Atlantic Tech blog. I don't get paid for any of that writing. If I tried to charge for it, no one would pay me. So I give it away for free while I hone my skills and build my (freely available) ouevre, in the hope that eventually the quality of my work will be such that I will be able to fund the production of the work, not the distribution of copies. (I.e. in the hope that I'll get hired by a web site or magazine to write on staff full-time.) So my money is actually located exactly where my mouth is.

Who's to say he hasn't already paid his dues? Maybe he did do sample work when he was just starting out and he's now at the phase where he's monetizing his skill set by selling good photos. He doesn't have a problem with companies that don't want to pay, he just says that what he does isn't cheap or free to do so pay him some money for his time and effort or just don't use the picture. If some website asks you to write full-time but they can't pay you anything other than exposure, are you going to take it? No, because you have a valuable skill that should be paid.

But let's try to keep it in the context of the post. He has a picture, apparently companies _want_ this picture so he has something that they cannot get just by grabbing an amateur's version of the photograph. These companies also have large ad and marketing budgets so money shouldn't be an issue yet somehow it is. I think in this case he has a right to be mad. He can't work for free, and since he took it and owns the rights to it he should be able to tell those companies to piss off. If there is a demand for his photo to be used then he should get paid.

Re: This Photograph Is Not Free

#217

Post by bediger »

jodrellblank wrote: post #94
bediger wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Pro quality" TV series? You mean like "CSI: Miami"? Or "Gilligan's Island"? Or do you mean movies like "The Smurfs" or the US version of "The Vanishing" or "Leave it To Beaver"? Yes, I'd gladly do without all that TV and all the movies, and most or all of the books. Oh, and the popular music. Especially the music by Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato and Ashlee Simpson.

I mean literally any movie that wasn't made by amateurs supported by another job, or philanthropic donations, or advertising funded. Its low to pick only the worst bits as a counterargument; it also implies no pro quality TV you like . And that you are willing to screw over people who genuinely do like Selena Gomez and Gilligan's Island and the like, just because you don't.

you are willing to screw over people who genuinely do like ... Gilligan's Island ... because you don't.

Your response irritated me beyond its level of highhandedness. And I finally figured out why: I actually do like Gilligan's Island. I even bought "The Professor's" tell-all book, "Here On Gilligan's Isle". It doesn't matter if I like "Gilligan's Ilsand" or not, it's of low quality. The acting was low, the writing was low, and the production was laughable. That hasn't kept me from liking it, or regarding it as High Bulldada.

Sherwood Schwartz and CBS should be ashamed of putting out such schlock, whether I like it or not, and you should be ashamed of deciding you know what my aesthetics are.

But I'm also curious: why does a movie made by people supported by another job, or philanthropic donations, or one funded by advertising not meet the standard of "pro quality"?

Re: This Photograph Is Not Free

#219

Post by joebadmo »

swang wrote: post #216
joebadmo wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He takes incredible pictures people want to use for their company and sells it to them. That might work for him, but I doubt it's viable for photographers in general, at least in the future. He has also mentioned that people who give stuff away for free or "credit" are just burned again later on because other companies don't want to pay, they want to "credit" Like I said, those companies aren't going to pay no matter…

I had a long post written but I think for brevity sake I'll only include what I thought is relevant. > In fact, to make it personal: I'm an aspiring writer. I write on my blog and I just got a couple of pieces published in the Atlantic Tech blog. I don't get paid for any of that writing. If I tried to charge for it, no one would pay me. So I give it away for free while I hone my skills and build my (freely available)…

Who's to say he hasn't already paid his dues?

I'm saying it's not about paying dues. I'm saying dues-paying is exactly the wrong attitude. I'm not writing for free out of some sense of obligation to the field. I'm doing it because that's the only way I can think of to build enough credibility to be able to charge for my productive capacity in the future.

...and he's now at the phase where he's monetizing his skill set by selling good photos.

My argument is that selling copies is not a great way to monetize that skill-set that he's built. It might work for a few people, but I think market dynamics are such that that's not going to be viable for many people for very long.

If some website asks you to write full-time but they can't pay you anything other than exposure, are you going to take it?

That's not the analogous situation. A closer one is: if a website asks to use a copy of one of my posts, paying only in exposure, would I take it? The answer is yes, I already do that. I could ask them to pay me for work I've already done, but it's a hard thing to ask, when people can get the same thing for free elsewhere.

He has a picture, apparently companies _want_ this picture

Yes. They want it for free, despite their large ad and marketing budgets. Money is always an issue. What makes you say "it shouldn't be an issue"?

He can't work for free, and since he took it and owns the rights to it he should be able to tell those companies to piss off. If there is a demand for his photo to be used then he should get paid.

You're right that he should be able to tell people to piss off if he wants to. He can try to charge a billion dollars per photo if he wants. I'm not saying he shouldn't, I don't think anyone is. I'm saying it's not going to work. I'm saying it's not a viable strategy for photographers at large for the foreseeable future. You're crazy if you think the companies that are asking for the photo for free are going to read this blog post and realize the error of their ways.

Re: This Photograph Is Not Free

#220

Post by baddox »

smackfu wrote: post #126
parfe wrote: post #121

Well the comments here terribly disappoint me. Clearly the photographer wants to be paid as a professional, just like anyone else here. The author should not have included any monetary figure in the article as doing so brings down the wrath of a thousand pedants with pocket calculators proving he overcharges and overvalues his work. So many people here seem to think they somehow "got him" on some straw-man price-poin…

I think the comments are fine, because the entire premise of the blog post is wrong. He should be paid because his skill as a photographer is worth money, not because he paid for a lot of expensive equipment.

If I bought all that same equipment, and took a terrible photograph, then according to his argument my photograph would also be worth 6 grand.
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