mrkeenan0
28th of September 2007 (Fri), 11:02
Last year I started taking pictures for my university’s newspaper – most were sports photos but I also covered a number of other events as well. I got decent enough that several parents had asked me about buying prints but last year I didn’t have a way to sell them like a website nor did I have the time during the school year to figure one out. This summer I emailed the university’s sports information director and he told me “I have no problem with you selling to the parents, but if you are going to advertise your services to them, there could be a potential problem. [The University photographer], I believe has the rights to sell to the parents in his contract and I really think that this is going to be up to him since he is going to be marketing to the parents through the new University website which is set to launch this summer.”
Later in the summer, the University Photographer told me he talked to the University’s treasurer and he said the treasurer was uncomfortable with me “marketing to parents.” I’ve sent multiple to the treasurer asking for clarification but he still hasn’t responded (though he has opened the emails).
To get to the point, I had set up a smugmug site to put the pictures up on to sell them to parents – rather than just giving them away. The only person I had told about the site was one of the assistant coaches who asked if he could use some of the photos for a highlight tape to show the team so I sent him a few, of course saying they were only for use on the highlight tape, and gave him the site so that he could look through and if there were others he wanted to use them I would send him copies without the watermark for the highlight tape. Somehow the site was given to a parent who emailed all of the other parents about the site and the afore mentioned school photographer was on the list.
I got a call from him early this week saying he wanted to meet to talk about it. He said others had been told to stop in the past and wanted to work with me rather than against me – which I thought was nice. I told him I was going off the email from the Sports Information Director and had not actively marketed the photos. His concern was that my prices were slightly lower (which I had no idea – I am not trying to undercut anyone here) than the University’s website but never gave a specific reason that I couldn’t sell them at all. He mentioned the possibility of maybe the university hiring me as another shooter and selling the photos on the website. He said he had no authority to offer me a job but would support me if that was a path I wanted to pursue. However, he was – understandably – very vague about specifics of the job possibility. I have yet to meet with him, but since the original phone call the coach of the football team has expressed interest in purchasing rights to some of the photos for recruiting materials.
Basically what I’m wondering is what can I do with the photos that I take? I’m new to this so it might be that I have absolutely no rights but it’d just be nice to know.
Also, when I meet with him about the website and job possibilities, what are some of the issues I should be aware of? Things that I’ve thought about brining up include what exactly I can do with the photos (though he might not know/give a perfectly correct answer), who would own what rights to the images, awhether the job is salaried (i.e. pay per hour) or commission (i.e. based on the university’s use of/sales of my images), and how much I would be paid. If anyone else has been in a situation like this, how you handled it/what you might do differently if you did it again would be nice to know.
Thanks for reading through and any advice would be great!
Later in the summer, the University Photographer told me he talked to the University’s treasurer and he said the treasurer was uncomfortable with me “marketing to parents.” I’ve sent multiple to the treasurer asking for clarification but he still hasn’t responded (though he has opened the emails).
To get to the point, I had set up a smugmug site to put the pictures up on to sell them to parents – rather than just giving them away. The only person I had told about the site was one of the assistant coaches who asked if he could use some of the photos for a highlight tape to show the team so I sent him a few, of course saying they were only for use on the highlight tape, and gave him the site so that he could look through and if there were others he wanted to use them I would send him copies without the watermark for the highlight tape. Somehow the site was given to a parent who emailed all of the other parents about the site and the afore mentioned school photographer was on the list.
I got a call from him early this week saying he wanted to meet to talk about it. He said others had been told to stop in the past and wanted to work with me rather than against me – which I thought was nice. I told him I was going off the email from the Sports Information Director and had not actively marketed the photos. His concern was that my prices were slightly lower (which I had no idea – I am not trying to undercut anyone here) than the University’s website but never gave a specific reason that I couldn’t sell them at all. He mentioned the possibility of maybe the university hiring me as another shooter and selling the photos on the website. He said he had no authority to offer me a job but would support me if that was a path I wanted to pursue. However, he was – understandably – very vague about specifics of the job possibility. I have yet to meet with him, but since the original phone call the coach of the football team has expressed interest in purchasing rights to some of the photos for recruiting materials.
Basically what I’m wondering is what can I do with the photos that I take? I’m new to this so it might be that I have absolutely no rights but it’d just be nice to know.
Also, when I meet with him about the website and job possibilities, what are some of the issues I should be aware of? Things that I’ve thought about brining up include what exactly I can do with the photos (though he might not know/give a perfectly correct answer), who would own what rights to the images, awhether the job is salaried (i.e. pay per hour) or commission (i.e. based on the university’s use of/sales of my images), and how much I would be paid. If anyone else has been in a situation like this, how you handled it/what you might do differently if you did it again would be nice to know.
Thanks for reading through and any advice would be great!