Have No Fear
It's something we have to get used to.
In the past, stock photographers have been reluctant to allow photobuyers to keep their slides or prints on file.
In the Digital Age we now find ourselves in, we have to change marketing tactics in regard to allowing a photobuyer to keep images on file at a publishing house.
Some photographers and some photobuyers might disagree, but here are two reasons why you should follow a new direction if you've been one of those hesitant photographers.
Photographers will often come to PhotoSource International as commercial (advertising) photographers, and have little experience in dealing with the publishing industry. In the advertising area of stock photography, it is unheard of to allow a photobuyer to download your images into the advertising agency's database.
The main reason for this is that ad agencies have a large turnover of personnel. The next art director in that agency has no connection with the former art director. In fact the new art director usually brings along connections with his or her own bevy of favorite photographers to supply images. Any images that linger in the ad agency's files are vulnerable to misuse.
FLY BY NIGHT
Secondly, another problem is the advertising agency itself might not be around next year. This is evident when you check your last year's Yellow Pages or the Red Book of Advertising Agencies. Ad agencies come and go. But what happens in the Digital Age to those images in the defunct agency's files? Who knows?On the other hand, when you are dealing with an established publishing house that has a good track record, you are dealing with a continuum. Rarely do we hear of a publishing house (the kind that receives two or three stars in the profiles that we publish in PhotoLetter or PhotoDaily) going out of business. Rather than go out of business, they usually merge with another "same-theme" publishing house. Along with this continuum, the retiring photobuyer passes along the company art file to the replacement photobuyer. You are assured almost complete security for your images filed with that publishing house.
Of course now and then errors occur at publishing houses, but very few. For example, a fresh, new intern at a publishing house might make an administrative error and allow a copyrighted picture to be used without payment to the photographer. But this is an honest mistake and we're all entitled to a few of those. Another rare instance might be that the printing company that the publishing house uses might commit an offense by downloading your image to their files, making it vulnerable to possible unauthorized use in the future. Again, if this happens, it's usually done by a replacement graphics person who assumed the image belonged to the printing plant. Most printers (thanks to lawsuits) are finally becoming aware that in the Digital Age, this kind of activity comes with a price. The resulting publicity is not favorable. Printing houses now advise their personnel (especially the new people) that "borrowing a client's image" for an additional or other usage without permission is illegal. You'll find you'll have few experiences of this kind when you deal with your photobuyers in the editorial field. Unfortunately, this is not true in the advertising world. So, you see, working in the field of editorial stock photography offers security benefits that you cannot find in the commercial stock photography sector.
CHECK OUT COPYRIGHT
As far as copyrighting your images, use the Search feature on our PSI Home Page to review past articles on Copyright. Also check out the archives section of the Kracker Barrel on the PhotoSource International website. You'llMORE SALES, LESS COST
The bottom line is this. If you are a commercial photographer delving now into editorial stock photography, you are crossing the bridge into a photography area that has different rules than what you are used to. Yes, allow the established publishing houses to keep your pictures on file. You'll make more sales that way. It's a compliment to you that the publishing house wants to include you in their database of images. And, it saves you the cost of scanning the photos yourself. Also, since the publishing house is doing their own in-house scanning, you can be assured that the scan fits their own specs.If you are already an editorial stock photographer and have been wary of exposing your pictures to a publishing house and allowing them to keep the images on file for possible future sales, have no fear. The law of probability is on your side. The incidence of publishers "stealing" a photo(s) is too low to stop you from giving yourself more exposure of your work and more chances of making sales by allowing your photos to be "available" on a moment's notice at a publishing house's central art library database of pictures.
Rohn Engh is director of PhotoSource International and publisher of PhotoStockNotes
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 Kerry Kolb |
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