A Yearbook stole my photos!

[Aeth]

A few months ago, I shot a local high school lacrosse team (freshmen-seniors), this was my first big project and I'm sure I had some shaky paper work and maybe some people fell through the cracks. :o
I know that I kept all the important parts in there, such as damages for using my images in publications, which was three times the amount of prints.

Anyway, I was thumbing through my brother-in-law's year book, and there were my photos from the games as well as the team photos. My watermark is on the team photos in the bottom right hand corner, and they're cut off as well, not because of my fault, but that is how they cropped it.

Mind you, I would not have a problem with letting them use the images, I would take it as an honor, but I wasn't even notified. Heck, even a verbal, "go ahead" would have worked! I wasn't even given a photo credit.

What should I do? I need to contact the yearbook adviser and find out what happens then. But when it comes to damages, what do I do?

Thanks.

[Garmer]

I would stick to your contract, go the editor (advisor) and show him/her your signed paperwork. I would then hand him/her an invoice for the amount (3x the cost of prints).

[Dennis_Hammer]

Don't contact the yearbook advisor. Send a bill to the principal along with a note of what happened. He will contact the advisor right away.

[S.Horton]

Send a bill to the school with a copy of the contract, a photocopy of the abuse, and a letter.

[bigcountry]

the ball is in your court....if you play your cards right you could end up w/ the gym being named after you!

[Jim G]

the ball is in your court....if you play your cards right you could end up w/ the gym being named after you!

On the other hand if you play the cards right you may get future work off them. I wouldn't go in guns blazing, I'd play it by ear.... gauge their reaction to start with.

[ssim]

Before everybody jumps in here and tells you to sue them, take them to the cleaners, et all, I would suggest that you confirm how the yearbook is ran at that school. In many schools it is a break even production and by and large most of the labor is volunteered.

I am not saying that you do nothing, just have the facts. I certainly don't advocate going in with both barrels blazing. I would speak directly the whomever is overall responsible for the yearbook and try out work out a that is amenable to all concerned. You certainly have the right to sue them the question is do you want to. Perhaps there is a way that they can give you the recognition for the use of the image that is worth more than an amount of money. You don't say where you are from and if you are in a small market perhaps an ad in local paper thanking you, a posting in the school somewhere doing the same. Word of mouth is a powerful medium and can work both positively and negatively for you if you do things that will leave a bad impression of you.

I am simply suggesting that you take the time to look at it in more ways that simply the immediate dollar signs of invoicing them. You seem to have the advantage (since you said you had a contract), make that work for you.

[DDCSD]

First, who was the contract with? Second, you're not going to get anything out of the yearbook committee, its not like Sports Illustrated used them without permission, so please don't worry about suing anyone.

As Jim and Sheldon suggested, this can work to your advantage much more than the $50 dollars you'd get for sending them a bill or the $100 you'd get from suing them. Remember, you can only sue for damages, and damages form editorial use in a yearbook of an educational institution adds up to...... not enough to even consider.

Certainly talk to whomever is in charge of the yearbook and explain how disappointed you are that they used your image(s) without permission. They may not even know, a student may have submitted them and not told the person in charge that they didn't take them. Going after them would be pointless, and you may be able to turn this into an opportunity to get access that other photogs can't get. That would likely be more valuable than any damages you would likely receive.

[Crewzer]

It seems they liked your group shot. Most yearbook advisors are also the Publications, journalism etc etc teacher. Speak to the principal, since they like your work, tell him you would love to do a low cost contract for group/sport shots the next year. Perhaps you can pick up homecoming/prom pics etc. Give them there out, if they blow you off then you can go from their. Just my 2cents

[Aeth]

Thanks for the advice everyone.

The way I worked it when I took the photos (since I was the official lacrosse photog), I had each player have an order form, which had all the legal on the back of it. Most parents signed it. Strike 1 on my part, since not all had a parent sign.
I also sold CD's with their game on it, which of course is really easy to redistribute. Strike 2.
Then strike 3 would be for me to go after them guns a blazin'. Because that one player who didn't have their parent sign could ruin my argument.

Like I said, I wouldn't have minded if they asked me and gave me photo credits.
I also went to that school too, but that was a while ago.
I put on those things (damages, etc) to discourage image stealing.

This was a huge learning experience for me, and this next time around (they've 95% agreed that I will take their photos next year), I will get the contract for the main people and have agreements before players or parents order.

Thanks again everyone. How would I go about civilly asking for recompense or more work to cover the "damages?"

[jsanz11]

I"ve had that done with me before too. I see my photos in yearbooks, birthday ads, programs or wahtever that are school or club affiliated but I just keep my mouth shut. I mean I get to shoot a football team freshman jv and varsity and make my nice chunk of change. If i get nit picky about them using my photos in their yerabook or yearbook ads would just cause a problem. I'm not gonna get anything out of being picky about htat. If anything the coach will just give me the boot the following year and go with someone else. Remember it's not about how much you make on year but if you can keep the customer repetative year in and year out.
-Joey

[tstowe]

I teach high school and I'm the yearbook advisor. I can't believe the publisher would let them put photos in there that show a copyright watermark.

Most yearbooks are not break-even. They usually run a small profit. I'd talk to the advisor about it.

[bigcountry]

LOL my comments were partly in jest!

[Aeth]

I"ve had that done with me before too. I see my photos in yearbooks, birthday ads, programs or wahtever that are school or club affiliated but I just keep my mouth shut. I mean I get to shoot a football team freshman jv and varsity and make my nice chunk of change. If i get nit picky about them using my photos in their yerabook or yearbook ads would just cause a problem. I'm not gonna get anything out of being picky about htat. If anything the coach will just give me the boot the following year and go with someone else. Remember it's not about how much you make on year but if you can keep the customer repetative year in and year out.
-Joey

I see your point of view, but do you at least receive credit for it?

[jsanz11]

Just a sk kindly if you can recieve credit for it in next years album. You're not losing anything or gaining anything by fighting for this one that is already done printed and over with.
I just feel the customers word of mouth will get you more business than someone seeing your logo on their pictures in a yearbook.

[adblink]

funny, same thing happened to me this year. Shot a few of my younger sisters volleyball games last year, and low and behold 3 small images appeared in the volleyball section, they didn't even bother cropping out the watermark, although its hard to distinguish because their small.

I don't have a contract or anything with the school so I can't do anything about it. Ah well

[WMS]

While I am not an attorney from my point of view your complaint is probably with the Publisher of the yearbook, not the High School . I would make sure that my photos were registered with the USPTO then contact the yearbook publisher's legal department offering to reach a mutually agreeable arrangement. Copyright infringement does have statutory damages should push come to shove, however I would rather reach a 'mutually agreeable arrangement' if at all possible.

Wayne

[AndreaBFS]

Weird. When I was on yearbook, it was just assumed that team photos, like student photos, were just a given to be in the yearbook. You say you were the official photographer, do you have a contract with the school? If you do, what does that contract say?

[Chief44]

The fault lies with the teacher or person who handles the yearbook, At my high school (the one I attended that is) we produced are yearbook cover to cover with In design and had to handle all the photos and getting permission to use them, in are case I did 90% if the sports photos and majority of the candids in the book that year. The teacher should be aware of the photos and be asking where they got them and if they had permission to use them. In this case she or he didn't.

Good to here it seemed to work out for the better though for you.

[DarwinS]

School is about learning, right? The yearbook staff are meant to have a fun learning experience. However, part of that learning ought to include respecting copyrights. I think much of the advice given has been very good. It seems there is opportunity to gain a contract for shooting school events next year but also, I think the point needs to be made that the staff violated your copyrights (as long as your contract was sufficient to protect you) with the intent that the school teach the subsequent yearbook staffs the importance of respecting others' rights and property. Approach it as an opportunity to teach in addition as an opportunity to grow your business.

[Aeth]

Weird. When I was on yearbook, it was just assumed that team photos, like student photos, were just a given to be in the yearbook. You say you were the official photographer, do you have a contract with the school? If you do, what does that contract say?

I did nothing with the school. The lacrosse team is ran by a parents association. Lacrosse in this area isn't really supported by the school (like football where a lot of costs are taken care of by the school), so the school itself was never mentioned in the contract.

I'm not sure if I want to smear it in their faces, but I do agree that they should have a lesson in copyright usage and seeking appropriate channels. I would really love to gain a sports job from this however. :) More money.

[WMS]

I did nothing with the school. The lacrosse team is ran by a parents association. Lacrosse in this area isn't really supported by the school (like football where a lot of costs are taken care of by the school), so the school itself was never mentioned in the contract.

I'm not sure if I want to smear it in their faces, but I do agree that they should have a lesson in copyright usage and seeking appropriate channels. I would really love to gain a sports job from this however. :) More money.

This is why I feel that the actual offender was the Company who publishes the School yearbook, Jostens is a major player in this field. While I would not go for major economic damages I would insist that my photographs not be used with out permission in the future and that the publisher send a memo to its staff to that effect. They will make sure that the school knows that the yearbook staff set them up. A non disclosure agreement forced on the yearbook publisher keeps my name out of the fray, preventing me from being the bad guy.

Wayne

[convergent]

I am going to disagree with much of the advice you've been given in this thread. Most photographers are willing to GIVE the yearbook any images in exchange for getting a shot at the school portrait business. There is no significant value in the yearbook images and I'm not sure what
"damages" you incurred. If you had decent sales already, and now your images are in the yearbook... my guess is that this has given you greater exposure and you will likely sell more next season. So its probably helped you more than hurt you. If the parents know that you are helping support the school, then they will more likely buy from you.

I think your mistake here was not realizing the environment you are in. You should have gone into this assuming that you would be supplying yearbook pictures to the school if you were shooting as the "official" photographer. You should have contacted the yearbook staff, and you should have helped them with getting the images in the right format and uploaded. When I work with schools now, I generally have them give me an ID on the yearbook website and I upload the images myself. That way they never have my images floating around on CDs and such to have the kids thinking they are free for the taking. The yearbook staff are kids... not a professional news organization, so they are likely to either not fully understand copyright rules, OR not care. If you are watermarking your images to avoid theft, you need to put the watermark in the middle of the image, not at the bottom.

To me, the professional in the deal is the one that should understand the environment and give advise and counsel to the customer. You didn't do that, so I think it would be a real poor move to come back and try to seek damages at this point. You would pretty much assure that you would never shoot for this school again, and since all Athletic Directors speak to each other pretty frequently, I'd guess you'd have a good shot at being tossed at other schools too. You made a mistake here, and if anything you should take the opportunity to meet with your contact at the school to go over that mistake. I would approach them and say that I didn't properly go over the yearbook usage in our contracts and discussions. The end result is that the images used in their yearbook didn't look the best that they could. So for next year, you'd like to make sure that they were handled the best... and so you want to handle cropping, processing and uploading them to the school's yearbook website.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

The way I worked it when I took the photos (since I was the official lacrosse photog), I had each player have an order form, which had all the legal on the back of it. Most parents signed it. Strike 1 on my part, since not all had a parent sign.
I also sold CD's with their game on it, which of course is really easy to redistribute. Strike 2.
Then strike 3 would be for me to go after them guns a blazin'. Because that one player who didn't have their parent sign could ruin my argument.

Like I said, I wouldn't have minded if they asked me and gave me photo credits.
I also went to that school too, but that was a while ago.
I put on those things (damages, etc) to discourage image stealing.

This was a huge learning experience for me, and this next time around (they've 95% agreed that I will take their photos next year), I will get the contract for the main people and have agreements before players or parents order.

Thanks again everyone. How would I go about civilly asking for recompense or more work to cover the "damages?"