09-19-2012
Photography: For What It's Worth
Center for Global Conservation, David Sundberg/ESTO
In 34 years of doing business, FXFOWLE has amassed an overwhelming collection of visual material – slides archived in carousels; blueprints rolled in tubes; drawings piled in flat files; notebooks filled with CD's; and so many gigabytes of digital photos on the server that I clicked "file size" on the project images folder before I started typing and the computer is still calculating.
The Marketing/Public Relations department receives daily requests for these project images from press, subconsultants, students, clients, and former employees, so it's important for us to have a clear understanding of each photographer's image usage rights and, in turn, to honor the valuable service they provide.
What Not to Share
Photographs, even in an electronic format, are considered intellectual property. Unlike other inventions (say, the light bulb, or facebook), copyright is automatically granted to the photographer the moment light hits the sensor.
Most photographers retain copyright of the images – so they can use them to promote their own work and/or sell them to additional parties – and grant us a certain amount of usage rights depending on our needs. Ideally, we purchase unlimited, non-exclusive "Single Entity Usage Rights." At first this made my brain hurt a little, but, as further specified by the photographer, it includes everything we would want to use project images for:
our portfolio
publicity
marketing collateral
advertisements
office displays
website
office reference
presentations
proposals
competition submittals
monographs
editorial
We get to promote our project work, and, by crediting him/her, the photographer as well. And because our agreement is non-exclusive, he/she still has the option to sell the images to anyone else who is interested (see daily requesters above). Hooray!
Lincoln Center, © Chris Cooper
If, however, this makes you sad because you think we (the client) should be free to hand out photos once we've paid for them, look at it this way: if an architect provides a building design for one client, that client does not have the right to distribute the blueprints to other clients for their own use. That would be absurd.
So, anyone other than the photographer must have permission to reproduce the image, in ANY medium, whether it be electronic or print. Does this mean that if you go flashing unlicensed photos across the web you will get thrown in jail? Probably not. (For an extreme example of when sharing is not ok, Google"WikiLeaks.") But if the photographer finds out, you will at least be asked to take it down or purchase rights. And hey, it's just not nice.
It's Worth It
We can describe with words the many merits of each project, its innovative features, materials, and process, but the words mean less if you don't experience the building yourself. For most of us, the only opportunity we have is to see it through the eyes of a photographer. So it's worth every licensing penny to find one who will make your project shine.
Multimedia Entertainment Company, © Frank Oudeman
The Marketing/Public Relations department receives daily requests for these project images from press, subconsultants, students, clients, and former employees, so it's important for us to have a clear understanding of each photographer's image usage rights and, in turn, to honor the valuable service they provide.
What Not to Share
Photographs, even in an electronic format, are considered intellectual property. Unlike other inventions (say, the light bulb, or facebook), copyright is automatically granted to the photographer the moment light hits the sensor.
Most photographers retain copyright of the images – so they can use them to promote their own work and/or sell them to additional parties – and grant us a certain amount of usage rights depending on our needs. Ideally, we purchase unlimited, non-exclusive "Single Entity Usage Rights." At first this made my brain hurt a little, but, as further specified by the photographer, it includes everything we would want to use project images for:
our portfolio
publicity
marketing collateral
advertisements
office displays
website
office reference
presentations
proposals
competition submittals
monographs
editorial
We get to promote our project work, and, by crediting him/her, the photographer as well. And because our agreement is non-exclusive, he/she still has the option to sell the images to anyone else who is interested (see daily requesters above). Hooray!
Lincoln Center, © Chris CooperIf, however, this makes you sad because you think we (the client) should be free to hand out photos once we've paid for them, look at it this way: if an architect provides a building design for one client, that client does not have the right to distribute the blueprints to other clients for their own use. That would be absurd.
So, anyone other than the photographer must have permission to reproduce the image, in ANY medium, whether it be electronic or print. Does this mean that if you go flashing unlicensed photos across the web you will get thrown in jail? Probably not. (For an extreme example of when sharing is not ok, Google"WikiLeaks.") But if the photographer finds out, you will at least be asked to take it down or purchase rights. And hey, it's just not nice.
It's Worth It
We can describe with words the many merits of each project, its innovative features, materials, and process, but the words mean less if you don't experience the building yourself. For most of us, the only opportunity we have is to see it through the eyes of a photographer. So it's worth every licensing penny to find one who will make your project shine.
Multimedia Entertainment Company, © Frank Oudeman
