G'day folks
This article made for interesting reading, seeing as I have experienced issues with this in the past I thought I would share it, do you have anything to say? Views on the subject, experiences?
With regards to mine. . . Well lets just say I dug my own grave:
I was working with a friend, teaching him and trying to make a little bit of money to expand on our little venture into photography. Let’s call him Tom. He was outgoing and bubbly, he was also pretty desperate. He wanted to get work, no matter what the consequences. In his frustrations he overlooked certain aspects that are important to running a business.
Now for me? When it comes to running a business it is important to always be professional. Show your clients that you are certain of yourselves. Above all cover yourself! Show up on time, presentation and first impressions last. When you are dealing in quid pro quo agreements, when you are offering your services in exchange for that of another, be sure you document your agreements.
Tom, you see Tom was all about good-faith and friendship, build up connections now – don’t worry about the cost – we’ll have connections later. He was eager to offer up our services in exchange for that of someone he knew.
In one situation, he had organised us a great gig! He told me about these friends of his, people I had met once or twice. These guys had developed a bit of name for themselves on the local scene; DJ's. Now you see they were eager to build up a portfolio of their own, local gigs and performances, a few basic photo shoots on location; nothing too arduous.
In return for us performing our services pro-bono they would help market us, get us in at good venues, behind the scenes, performance shots. They would put our logo on the images and support us, hand out our flyers, whatever they could do. Great, moving stuff from Tom. I brought up paper-work and contracts; no need, they’re good guys, good friends, they’ll come through. I pushed a bit harder and he spouted more of the same nonsense. I gave up.
We ended up doing several shoots for them, handed out the photos to them and their designer. And that was that. Communication settled to a bare minimum between Tom and his friends. We were not contacted about the photos again, although rumour has it; they used several pictures in their album.
In another he made contact with another guy from the party-scene who was interested in quid-pro-quo services. He happily signed onto the situation; websites were promised, branding, advertising, model and fashion shoots, the whole world was on a golden platter. Paper was, mentioned, a contract; how about all this down in black and white? Once again shrugged off, we’ll worry about that later.
Several shoots and disks of photos handed out later, and Tom’s buddy drifted into oblivion; no remuneration.
No paper work was ever signed, nor were any legal terms, rights of ownership etc. ever discussed.
In short; we all parted ways eventually. I wrote it off as a bad loss and moved on. I doubt I will challenge it in the future; it is in the past and that's where it should stay.
However I learnt a valuable lesson and did all my research into copyrights and Intellectual property. Take note also of the mention of Facebook's ownership rights. I believe we should support the mediums of social networking in all its formats and categories, however being aware of our rights is invaluable to businesses of all shape and description, perhaps most importantly to young and growing entrepreneurs.
Click on the link and read a little on the subject, get back to me. . .
Copyright is a subject that is very misunderstood by photographers in South Africa, and yet it is so important not only in how we protect ourselves but also how we negotiate these rights. If done correctly, it could create a new revenue stream for the future.
