Photos for sale on the web

joolsveer

I did some work recently for a local newspaper and made it clear that the photos was for single use in the paper and that I retained the copyright.
I see the photos are for sale on their website now although I did not give them permission (I was not told that they would put them on their website).
Any advice as to how I should handle this?

Paulw

Contact them and demand the image removed, send them an invoice for additional usage of the image, or contact a solicitor and seek payment for usage of image and also demand removal.

joolsveer

Thanks for your speedy response.

There are 21 of my photographs on the site and I can see the exif data still contains my copyright text. See bottom right on this screengrab.

http://centreofenglish.com/photos/sale.jpg

The paper has asked me to take more photos for them at an event today. I only found my photos on their website this morning.

Paulw

Send them a nice large invoice , and if not paid, find a nice solicitor, and then follow up.

humberklog

That has to be the cheekiest use of pics I've come across.

Stunningly outrageous, beyond the beyond.

Best of luck in resolving the issue but it's hard to know if such behaviour warrants a softly softly approach in order to maintain further business with them or wether to go in with wild fury and a 12gauge.

Softly Softly with a 12gauge?

joolsveer

I think I will phone them first and express surprise at the use of the photos and see what they say. Afterward the phone call I will review the position.

Paulw

I would send an invoice before talking to them. Otherwise they may just pull the picts and say they sold none.

Invoice first, talk later.

mdebets

Paulw wrote: »

I would send an invoice before talking to them. Otherwise they may just pull the picts and say they sold none.

Invoice first, talk later.

This might not be the best solution for the problem. It could all be a misunderstanding between the picture desk and the website department of the paper and the later just assumed that all pictures go onto their sales site as well and that the photographer had agreed to that.

The OP should definitely get some screenshots of the website selling the pictures and get some independent witness to confirm this. Therefore, he is protected against the paper pulling the pictures, because he has evidence of the wrong doing.

Then the OP should ask himself a few questions, to determine how to proceed further.

How did the paper got your pictures. Did you take them at an event and sent them to the paper on your own initiative or did the paper ask you to go to the event and take pictures for them?
If it is the later, there might be an argument, that the paper actually owns the copyright and not the photographer, especially if he is paid by time , not by picture.

If you sent in the pictures on your own initiative, did the paper pay a proper price for the pictures and are you a regular contributor to the paper or was this just a once off (or a twice off with the second request)?

If you are not a regular contributor to the paper and don't want to become one, or if they don't pay proper prices for the pictures, then go ahead and write an invoice for these pictures.

If they pay you proper prices for your pictures on a regular basis and you want to continue to work for them, it might be counter productive to write an invoice, especially, as they might not have sold any pictures of you, but still would have to pay you for trying to do so.
Instead, I would talk to them and either negotiate a cut from the money they earn with your pictures, or to get the old ones removed and paid, based on what they have sold so far, and new ones not being placed on their site for sale.

joolsveer

An update of the story. I checked with my contact with the paper and he says that they are entitled to sell the photographs as it is in their terms and conditions. I have not seen the t&cs. Now I would like to get some legal advice to see where I go from here. Can anyone recommend a solicitor who works in this area? Please PM me if you know of one.

magicbastarder

unless you signed a contract, i suspect they cannot enforce Ts&Cs on you that they did not inform you of. this is far from a legal opinion though.
do the Ts&Cs give you a cut of the money from web sales? because if not, it is pure profiteering on their part.

Corkbah

joolsveer wrote: »

An update of the story. I checked with my contact with the paper and he says that they are entitled to sell the photographs as it is in their terms and conditions. I have not seen the t&cs. Now I would like to get some legal advice to see where I go from here. Can anyone recommend a solicitor who works in this area? Please PM me if you know of one.

to be honest you wont get much in terms of recourse here !

all that is likely to happen is that the paper will stop using you to take photos - someone else will come along and do the job for them and may not know or care about them re-selling the images, at best you will get an apology from the paper claiming it was a genuine error and they wont do it again (but they also wont hire you again)

best way to beat them would be to say nothing - do the jobs they pay for and offer to sell the people in the pics a copy for half the price that the paper are charging !!

you are in a position to sell the images at whatever price you want as they are your copyright and property (unless specified by the paper at time of hiring)

to be honest the "contact" in the paper seems to be brushing you off - they have no contract with you so they have no terms and conditions agreed.

Carvair

Name & Shame the publication .

Kenny Logins

Selling the photos seems to be a big part of their business, and they have a website dedicated to this... Didn't they point this out before employing you?

joolsveer

No. They did not point out that they put contributors's photos for sale on the web.

It is the Gazette Group in Lucan by the way.

Kenny Logins

joolsveer wrote: »

It is the Gazette Group in Lucan by the way.

I know. :P

Kenny Logins

Even if a picture hasn’t appeared in the paper, every shot we take at every event we attend will be available to purchase online, just log on to gazettephotos.com to find your pictures.

http://www.gazettegroup.com/gazette-photos/

joolsveer

Kenny Logins wrote: »

http://www.gazettegroup.com/gazette-photos/

These are the photos in question. I do not claim they are masterpieces but I like some of them.

http://www.gazettephotos.com/p292579522

Corkbah

pretty sure I saw this in one of the national papers http://www.gazettephotos.com/p292579522/h5eb5ad2a#h5eb5b30e

joolsveer

Corkbah wrote: »

pretty sure I saw this in one of the national papers http://www.gazettephotos.com/p292579522/h5eb5ad2a#h5eb5b30e

I would be very interested in finding out if any of these were published in national papers.

padocon

OP was it your first time dealing with them or have you been providing them with photos in the past. And also how did you provide them with the photos? If it was by email did they outline the terms and was there terms mentioned in the invoice they sent you or payment slip etc?

dinneenp

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