Licensing Agreement help

CWSkopec · February 5, 2009

I work for a small publishing company that does primarily military base guides (sort of a "welcome to town, here's what's around" sort of thing) and we're working on a guide for Camp Pendleton, which is just a little north of San Diego. Due to the proximity, most of the community section highlights the San Diego area and the "powers that be" have asked to use some of my photos.

Due to the economy, we as a company are struggling a little and they can't afford to pay. Oddly enough I'm OK with that, as long as I get credit for the photos. However, in order to insure that I do get credit, I felt it needed to come up with a licensing agreement and would love to hear what you pros think about it before I print it and tell the "powers that be" that they have to sign it or the whole thing is a no go. Since they are my bosses for the job that pays my bills, I'm definitely not looking to offend anyone, but still want to make sure my butt's covered.

________________________________

This license grants MARCOA Publishing, Inc. the non-exclusive right to reproduce selected and provided photographic works of Chris Skopec. These works are provided free of charge for use in the 2009 Camp Pendleton Family Living Guide and subsequent issues. Approval for additional publications may be obtained via email to chris@chrisskopec.com. The length of this license is indefinite, however the following conditions apply:

* The provide works may not be used in advertisements of any nature, including filler ads.
* Credit must be given as “Photo © chrisskopec.com”
* A high resolution PDF of each page (including covers) featuring any of the works must be submitted to chris@chrisskopec.com once final corrections have been made, i.e. after blue lines have been approved. These are for the photographers archival purpose and self promotion. They will not be reproduced for any other purpose.
* This license agreement is non-transferable.

This agreement may be revoked at any time, with written notice, for violation of the above stated conditions.
_______________________________

So, how'd I do?
Thanks for looking!

Angelo · February 5, 2009

you should probably see this:

http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=119813

CWSkopec · February 6, 2009

Angelo wrote:

you should probably see this:

http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=119813

Thanks for the link, Angelo. I must have missed that one when it was new. It was definitely an informative video, but I'm still a little unsure how to proceed. Are you hinting that I should just worry about registering my images and not deal with any sort of agreement since I would be covered?

I think I understood the interview, but if I missed your point, please feel free to tell me to watch again and pay closer attention.

Blaker · February 6, 2009

CWSkopec wrote:

I work for a small publishing company that does primarily military base guides (sort of a "welcome to town, here's what's around" sort of thing) and we're working on a guide for Camp Pendleton, which is just a little north of San Diego. Due to the proximity, most of the community section highlights the San Diego area and the "powers that be" have asked to use some of my photos.

Due to the economy, we as a company are struggling a little and they can't afford to pay. Oddly enough I'm OK with that, as long as I get credit for the photos. However, in order to insure that I do get credit, I felt it needed to come up with a licensing agreement and would love to hear what you pros think about it before I print it and tell the "powers that be" that they have to sign it or the whole thing is a no go. Since they are my bosses for the job that pays my bills, I'm definitely not looking to offend anyone, but still want to make sure my butt's covered.

Just curious, does your company provide these booklets for free, as a public service to the military base , or are they getting paid for the guides?
Did the writers of the book get paid?
If these booklets are your company's major product, and they can't afford to pay for the content of the guides, then it appears as though they haven't figured out their cost of doing business, and have not built an adequate profit margin into the product.
I just don't understand why so many photographers give away their product for free to corporations that will be making money from the use of the photographs.
I just can't see my plumber fixing my faucets for free as long as I tell people that he did the work!!

Blaker · February 6, 2009

CWSkopec wrote:

Thanks for the link, Angelo. I must have missed that one when it was new. It was definitely an informative video, but I'm still a little unsure how to proceed. Are you hinting that I should just worry about registering my images and not deal with any sort of agreement since I would be covered?

I think I understood the interview, but if I missed your point, please feel free to tell me to watch again and pay closer attention.

Registering your photos with the US copyright office does not take the place of a licensing agreement (contract) between you and your client.
You should definitely have a licensing agreement in place- but you should also register your photos.

CWSkopec · February 6, 2009

Blaker wrote:

Just curious, does your company provide these booklets for free, as a public service to the military base , or are they getting paid for the guides?
Did the writers of the book get paid?
If these booklets are your company's major product, and they can't afford to pay for the content of the guides, then it appears as though they haven't figured out their cost of doing business, and have not built an adequate profit margin into the product.
I just don't understand why so many photographers give away their product for free to corporations that will be making money from the use of the photographs.
I just can't see my plumber fixing my faucets for free as long as I tell people that he did the work!!

You make a very good point, Blaker, and I figured to get at least one reply to this effect.

Basically, the books are provided to the bases, free of charge and are written by the Public Affairs office on base. Most of the photos come from the base generally, also free of charge. This just happens to be a nearby base and is more targeted towards family content than our normal books which focus more on the units at a particular base.

While I don't expect to see a huge bump in traffic to my site from this, any increased local traffic would be of benefit, especially since I believe local content may be of more interest to folks as opposed to something from across the country. May be a completely false assumption, but I'm willing to test it out as a trial effort.

As an additional bonus, if providing the photos secures my job even just a little bit more it's worth it to me. Just a week ago, some folks were laid off, not many, but enough to make people think...

To boil it all down... if the company does better because of the photos, I do better and while that might not be a traditional "payment" as you're alluding to, but's it's also not "free" since I benefit.

CWSkopec · February 6, 2009

Blaker wrote:

Registering your photos with the US copyright office does not take the place of a licensing agreement (contract) between you and your client.
You should definitely have a licensing agreement in place- but you should also register your photos.

OK, after thinking it over a little bit better, that's pretty much what I figured. Thanks for confirming!

Angelo · February 6, 2009

CWSkopec wrote:

Thanks for the link, Angelo. I must have missed that one when it was new. It was definitely an informative video, but I'm still a little unsure how to proceed. Are you hinting that I should just worry about registering my images and not deal with any sort of agreement since I would be covered?

I think I understood the interview, but if I missed your point, please feel free to tell me to watch again and pay closer attention.

The point of directing your attention to that video was to stress the importance of:

a) don't try to be your own lawyer and

b) don't ask other photographers for legal advice

I'm not a lawyer but I can tell you I find a few things in your proposed letter of agreement poorly worded, in legal parlance, and could lead to losses rather than gains.

CWSkopec · February 6, 2009

Angelo wrote:

The point of directing your attention to that video was to stress the importance of:

a) don't try to be your own lawyer and

b) don't ask other photographers for legal advice

I'm not a lawyer but I can tell you I find a few things in your proposed letter of agreement poorly worded, in legal parlance, and could lead to losses rather than gains.

Ah... that make quite a bit more sense then... thanks for the advice Angelo!

Blaker · February 6, 2009

CWSkopec wrote:

To boil it all down... if the company does better because of the photos, I do better and while that might not be a traditional "payment" as you're alluding to, but's it's also not "free" since I benefit.

I think one of the reasons so many businesses "can't afford to pay" for photographs is because they know if they just ask around a little bit they can alway find someone who will provide the photos for free , just for the vanity of it. But you don't see the writers, the publisher, the printer, or the bookbinders working for free- they always seem to be able to pay them!
I don't mean to focus on just you , it's a general trend where photographers don't value their product, and why should any business have a budget for photos when they can always find someone to provide them for free?
Anyway, I can understand your reason for doing so, and I wish you luck!

As far as the licensing agreement, I think if you look through some of the stickies at the top of this forum, you can find websites with sample agreements to look through, and lots of other info as well.

CWSkopec · February 6, 2009

Blaker wrote:

I think one of the reasons so many businesses "can't afford to pay" for photographs is because they know if they just ask around a little bit they can alway find someone who will provide the photos for free , just for the vanity of it. But you don't see the writers, the publisher, the printer, or the bookbinders working for free- they always seem to be able to pay them!
I don't mean to focus on just you , it's a general trend where photographers don't value their product, and why should any business have a budget for photos when they can always find someone to provide them for free?
Anyway, I can understand your reason for doing so, and I wish you luck!

As far as the licensing agreement, I think if you look through some of the stickies at the top of this forum, you can find websites with sample agreements to look through, and lots of other info as well.

No worries, Blaker. I'm always up for a discussion so I'm not taking too hard or offended in any way. You make some great points, and my my goal is not to devalue my work, or the work of anyone else as a result.

I appreciate your thoughts on the matter and will check out the stickies to see what I've missed in previous glances.

Licensing Agreement help

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