Copyright Facts
Today I found out via Instagram that one of my portraits was up on a billboard near NYC’s very own Times Square. What an honor, right? While I was proud to see my image up there, it, unfortunately, was disappointing to see as I had never given anyone permission to use my work in that way, especially without a commercial license. I had to contact the company to take it down. Now, don’t get me wrong - I absolutely will share my copyrighted images in a commercial way, but the client needs to receive permission and purchase the correct license to do so, otherwise, they are straight-up stealing my work and profiting from it.
Since many of us are skimmers when it comes to reading contracts, I just want to share a quick reminder of Copyright and how it works.
As a Photographer, every image I take is protected by copyright as soon as I take the photo. This means, as the creator of the image, I own the exclusive legal rights (and am the only person who can provide the legal rights to license the image out). So, while I provide you with a Personal Use License during your photoshoot to print and share your images for personal use, I still own the copyright. You, as my client, still have the rights to privacy and publicity (which means you can ask for your images to be shared/not shared publicly), however, you may not provide the rights to a third party.
Just like you wouldn’t purchase music on Itunes and then turn around and sell that music or license it for profit, you can’t legally grant permissions or sell a Photographer’s work without dealing with copyright infringement (and trust me, you don’t want that lawsuit on your hands).
To put it simply, don’t steal someone’s work and try to profit off of it. Talk to the creator and obtain permission in advance. I intentionally don’t put my logo and copyright symbol on my images when I provide them to the client because I want you to have your images free of distraction and focused on you (not me) and sadly, some have taken advantage of this. Ya’ll, please let me keep it this way.
Most of my clients thankfully have been so wonderful and I’ve never had an issue arise. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had clients or their vendors come back and ask for the rights to share with a third party that I’ve said yes to. I’m always available for questions and so happy to see you get published! Just get in touch with me if you ever have questions or want to purchase additional rights.