A friend of mine was offered to shoot for a mag..

Foques

..an online mag, covering bands, live music etc.
Check out the contract they sent her:

This Assignment of Intellectual Property and Indemnification of Liability Agreement (the “Agreement”) is signed by the
person or entity who is submitting Intellectual Property in whatever form (e.g. including but not limited to: video, still
photos, file footage, artwork, music) to EDITED.COM.
In submitting the Intellectual Property to EDITED.COM the undersigned hereby agrees and certifies as
follows:
1. That the signatory is the owner of the intellectual property or has authority to sign on behalf of the entity who is the
owner of the intellectual property and has all rights, title, and interest in the property to allow its transfer for use by
EDITED.COM.
2. That EDITED.COM shall have unlimited rights to use, disclose, reproduce, prepare derivative works,
distribute copies to the public, and perform publicly and display publicly, in any manner and for any purpose, and to
have or permit others to do so.
3. Signatory of this Agreement as owner of or representative of the owner of the intellectual property submitted for
unrestricted use by EDITED.COM hereby unconditionally and forever releases and discharges, and
agrees to indemnify EDITED.COM, its affiliates, officers, directors, employees, agents, and
contractors/subcontractors, for and from any and all claims, judgments, costs, damages, losses, expenses, and
liabilities relating to any claim of the undersigned or any third party with regard to the intellectual property submitted
to EDITED.COM for its unrestricted use.
4. Signatory of this Agreement hereby certifies that it has obtained written permission from all persons whose images
appear in the intellectual property submitted to EDITED.COM, including parental consent for all minors
appearing in the intellectual property.
5. That the signatory is an independent contractor and not acting as agent, servant, and/or employee of
EDITED.COM
6. This Agreement shall be governed by Federal law.
I acknowledge and agree that my consent to the terms set forth above is material inducement for
EDITED.COM to use my intellectual property and it would not do so in the absence of my consent as
evidenced by my signature below.
I have been given a full opportunity to review and analyze this Agreement. I fully and completely understand all of the
terms of this Agreement and sign it voluntarily, freely, and knowingly.

:scratch

jmphotocraft

Tell him to re-write it and send it back.

kdog

Actually this looks pretty straightforward to me.

jonh68

I'm with kdog seems pretty standard contract and similar to ones I have signed when dealing with publications. They have to cover themselves as well.

Foques

sorry about the delayed reply; I was away from technology last week

This is a contract sent to a person who will be acting as an unpaid contributor, responsible for finding own gigs and writing own reviews for the site to publish it under their name.

kdog

I would expect that the magazine would adhere to the same copyright and privacy standards for all contributed content, regardless of whatever agreements they have with the artist.

If you saw one of your wedding photos appear on the cover of Modern Bride Magazine, but attributed to someone else, would you let the magazine off the hook because the person who submitted it was unpaid?

Foques

Kdog, I'm not sure what your'e asking me here.
What I do see is that my original message wasn't clear, though. by "own name" I mean not giving the original artist the credit. It will be just published under the (C) belonging to the online publication.

As I see it, this kind of contract would be appropriate if the publication was providing assignments and/or reimbursing the artist.

jonh68

Regardless if it is pay or not the contract to use the pictures is the same. The Payment agreement may be worked into the contract or be a separate form. The publication is covering themselves.

kdog

Arseny, there are two separate issues here. The first issue is that there's no way any legit publication is going to include photos that were not acquired without due diligence as to ownership, permission and privacy. Who cares whether the artist was paid or how much? If you see your picture in their mag without your permission, you're going to sue them regardlessly. Right? The contract is appropriate for ALL work that's to be published.

The second issue is artist compensation. You're right, I misunderstood. I thought by "own name", you meant your friend's name. So they offered your friend a job shooting photos for free and for no credit? That's utterly absurd and I can't understand why anybody would do such a thing. Regardless, if they did submit photos, then I can certainly see that the same legal criteria would apply as for any paid photographer. A picture is a picture, and if the magazine publishes it then they are liable for it. If they can't show due diligence in acquiring said photos, then they're completely screwed if the photos turn out to be acquired illegally. Make sense?

mercphoto

Foques wrote: »

sorry about the delayed reply; I was away from technology last week

This is a contract sent to a person who will be acting as an unpaid contributor, responsible for finding own gigs and writing own reviews for the site to publish it under their name.

kdog is right on all counts, and I'll reiterate for emphasis why in the world would anyone do this?

jonh68

mercphoto wrote: »

kdog is right on all counts, and I'll reiterate for emphasis why in the world would anyone do this?

You would be surprised. For some people the joy of saying they are published is enough payment.

Foques

kdog wrote: »

Arseny, there are two separate issues here. The first issue is that there's no way any legit publication is going to include photos that were not acquired without due diligence as to ownership, permission and privacy. Who cares whether the artist was paid or how much? If you see your picture in their mag without your permission, you're going to sue them regardlessly. Right? The contract is appropriate for ALL work that's to be published.

The second issue is artist compensation. You're right, I misunderstood. I thought by "own name", you meant your friend's name. So they offered your friend a job shooting photos for free and for no credit? That's utterly absurd and I can't understand why anybody would do such a thing. Regardless, if they did submit photos, then I can certainly see that the same legal criteria would apply as for any paid photographer. A picture is a picture, and if the magazine publishes it then they are liable for it. If they can't show due diligence in acquiring said photos, then they're completely screwed if the photos turn out to be acquired illegally. Make sense?

I see what you're saying. I completely agree that contract is a must; no questions. I am not saying that the publication is acting absurd by requiring a contract to be signed.

My apologies for not being clear.. my brain was a bit more jumbled than usual seeing as a whole lot of things happened while I was out last week, and I was trying to multitask.:)