ShipSpotting.com Forum
Shipspotters all over the world => Help and Advice => Topic started by: Owen Foley on January 25, 2018, 09:39:55 AM
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I was contacted today by the managing director of a shipping line asking to use some of my photos he'd seen here and offering to give me credit.
When I offered him 20 pix for a very reasonable price, his response was that he feared I was a professional but since they already had photos of their ships they would not be paying for any more.
So he's actively approaching photographers to weezle some free photos for his business but avoids anyone that asks to be paid.
What a cheapskate!
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I guess one of the issues here is also whether the photographer wants to make money with their photos or not. Cheapskate shipowner or not, I bet there are still amateur or hobbyist photographers who would just be happy if someone liked their photos and wanted to use them for something, perhaps even give credit to the photographer. My photographs from Shipspotting.com have appeared in a few news articles in the past few days and I'm just happy to see my name next to them. They could have picked any of the other freely-available pictures, but at least now they chose, in my opinion, the best... ;)
Of course, I fully understand why someone would not want to hand over their photographs for free.
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Owen,
I can report about dozends of managing directors contaccting me every year.
Indeed, some of them are paying for my photos but most of them are not willing to pay.
And I check especially these companies every 3 month looking for one of my photos they have "borrowed" after cutting off my watermark.
Rgds. Juergen
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I happily supply photography and services free to several organisations.
But a company with 17 container ships doesn't qualify as a charity.
That the managing director is actively scrounging like that is pretty poor.
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I am just a happy amateur,so I am a littlebit tickled that someone wants to publish my pictures. They can haven them freely when they explain what they want them for. Only once I said no,because it was a little too shady.
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In 2015 I was contacted by a film producer asking me if my Shipspotting photo of the Angelina Lauro could be used in a short documentary picture. It was to be about the New Zealand artist Robert Rapson. The production company also wanted to be permitted to use it in associated promotional material. It wasn
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i can sign under on all of this.
But PLEASE dont sell your pictures cheap, as you then will destroy for those that do this for a living...
Tomas
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What is a reasonable price for a photo?
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The most I have been ever received is USD 400. A friend was offered USD 250 recently. Paper work is required. In all such cases I was approached after the pic was seen on this site
I make no charge for publications by volunteer enthusiast groups who distribute to their members.
In all cases I obtain published credit for my name, and a copy of the publication(s).
I understand that such action by me and others competes with professionals like our wonderful Tomas. But that is the way the world operates and my choice will not change that.
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If it is for publications I often give for the mentioning in the book etc and a copy of the publication of which by now I have about 15 or so. If it is for a shipping company I charge as I see fit. don,t get rich with it though :-(
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What is a reasonable price for a photo?
That's not easy to answer, it depends on who you sell to and the use/s the purchaser has in mind and whether they want limited rights to use the image or if they want to own sole rights (own the photo).
At the high end of the scale, that can be in the thousands of dollars (if you are very lucky.
I've just had an interesting chat with PR and legal people from a cruise line who have found my photos online and are concerned about protecting their copyright property (the logos and names of the ships).
They also like the photos and are talking about making an offer to buy them.
I'm not sure where this will go and what it means for me if I photograph their ships in future.
I'm waiting to hear what they come up with.
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Quote "I've just had an interesting chat with PR and legal people from a cruise line who have found my photos online and are concerned about protecting their copyright property (the logos and names of the ships)".End Quote
If shipowners start behaving like that, and even may start to charge "portrait rights" for their ships, we will end up with taking pictures just four ourselves...
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The communication regarding photos appears to have had two elements, one of which appears to have been a low key suggestion that the photographer ought not to be publishing photos of their ships because of their copyrights etc. The other element indicated some interest in purchasing them. It might suggest that together, the primary interest is in the purchasing of the photos and the copyright issue is a bit of arm twisting to reduce the price. I suspect that if the writer declined their offer as unsuitable they
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They have comeback with their offer.
I'm very unimpressed as the price they are offering for sole rights is very low (under $100 each)
Their threat seems odd considering the only image I've sold of any of their ships was to them.
Here's what they ve come back with:
**** considers that you have infringed its copyright by reproducing, publishing and selling photographs containing images of **** ships which include images of their logos and ship names. As the owner in the copyright it each of their logos, it is the **** brands alone who are entitled to commercially exploit images embodying that artistic work. We understand that it was not your intention to infringe ****'s copyright and that you were unaware of the legal situation surrounding the taking and selling of images of our ships. We acknowledge that your photographs are artistic works in themselves and think they are great. We would like to use them in our marketing materials and therefore put the following proposal to you:
- **** agrees not to take any action against you for infringing its copyright, including seeking licence fees that it may be entitled to collect on the value of sales made by you of images featuring **** ships
- You cease to publicise the "**** images" in any media
- You grant to **** an exclusive licence to use all images containing **** owned or operated ships, in any way it sees fit (and you sign a short contract reflecting this)
- **** pays you a fee of $xxx
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Well, it looks like I read their intentions correctly, although if I had been the recipient of the letter I'd have felt both threatened and blackmailed by its content, rather than seeing it as a simple offer to purchase. Here, we have a citizen's advice bureau where I could obtain a free assessment of the legality of such a level of coercion. I'm almost surprised that there wasn't a closing paragraph giving you 24 hours to make your mind up before they sent Jimmy The Leg Breaker round to assist you in your decision making.
I wonder how many prospective passengers would be deterred from joining them if they knew what threats potentially awaited them for publishing their holiday photos.
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Coincidentally, while doing a bit of factual research prior to posting a further photograph here, I came across a P&O fan website and discovered an unauthorised copy of my Shipspotting picture of the Oriana. I was not best pleased. I have refreshed my view on photo copyrights and came across this document.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/481194/c-notice-201401.pdf (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/481194/c-notice-201401.pdf)
Interestingly, in your case, it refers to the copyright of photos of copyrighted objects. An example given was a photo of an art gallery where many copyrighted objects would be on display. In that regard, the photo of the copyrighted objects is seen as being incidental to the photograph and not subject to those copyrights. So it could be suggested that unless a photo of a ship focused specifically on the name or livery but instead related to the form of the ship and its environment, the copyrighted aspects of the vessel were incidental to the photograph and did not apply.
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After referring to the relevant copyright legislation to point out that my photos were not infringing their rights, the cruise line has backed off on the legal threats and simply made a substantially larger offer to obtain my images.
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Brilliant! Well done.