Advice on free to local papers, but only them.

[spkerer]

First of all, I'm a hobbiest and I am not trying to make this into a business. I take pictures for our local volunteer fire company. I would like to get an agreement in place with the local papers - the small ones serving the same community as the volunteer fire company - where I would provide them photos of the fire company in action. I am willing to provide those local papers the pictures for free. I am willing to do so because I believe having good photos showing what the volunteers do in the papers that are read by the people that help fund those volunteers will help the fire company when it comes to fundraising and donations. So given that setup...

What's the best way to setup agreements/arrangements with these local papers. I would like to set up agreements where they are free to use the pictures in their local papers only. I do not want them to be able to resell those pictures. Is this the type of thing that is arranged ahead of time and just kept as a kind of standing agreement or must there be some type of per-picture documentation?

I would appreciate any advice or pointers you can provide on dealing with arrangements like this.

P.S. By local papers, I mean the community papers serving my local town and county, not the Washington Post serving the general Washington, D.C. metro area.

[mattograph]

I'm not sure I follow where you want to go. You would have three types of photos to offer them: promotional, training, and run photos. Their need for promotional photos would depend on their feature schedule, as would the training. Run photos, presuming they are of something more than "smoke in the area" are news. House fire, car fire, high angle rescue -- thats the "good stuff".

With that said, on the promotional and training side, I would assume their needs would be intermittent. On the news side, I don't know why you wouldn't charge them just like an PJ would == you could always donate the money back to the fire department.

An agreement for them to use them only would be difficult to enforce. Instead, why not approach them and ask them to donate or discount some space on a regular basis to the doings of the FD as a recruiting tool. You could provide the photos, and offer the community an important service.

[spkerer]

I'm not sure I follow where you want to go. You would have three types of photos to offer them: promotional, training, and run photos. Their need for promotional photos would depend on their feature schedule, as would the training. Run photos, presuming they are of something more than "smoke in the area" are news. House fire, car fire, high angle rescue -- thats the "good stuff".

More along the lines of the "good stuff." I get paged out on all the calls for the fire department. I respond from home when (1) I'm available and (2) it seems like a potentially interesting call. Working fires qualify as interesting. :-)

With that said, on the promotional and training side, I would assume their needs would be intermittent. On the news side, I don't know why you wouldn't charge them just like an PJ would == you could always donate the money back to the fire department.

I hadn't really put much thought into the training side. I was looking to use the "good stuff" as promotional as best I can. Thinks like having our apparatus visible in the picture, or our people with our company name visible on their gear. That plus providing the paper the correct names of who/what is involved. It's amazing how wrong they get some of that stuff.

As far as charging, I don't have a business nor any of the paperwork or tax ids that go along with a business. Would that typically cause a problem for them in paying me? I'd be ok with them "donating" to the fire company directly, but I don't know if there are problems with that - if a donation is required, is it really a donation kind of thing.

An agreement for them to use them only would be difficult to enforce.

I thought this would have been more straightforward. I thought that typically when someone licenses a photo to a newspaper, it can be licensed to only that newspaper - meaning that can't sell it to the Washington Post or a news channel or such.

Instead, why not approach them and ask them to donate or discount some space on a regular basis to the doings of the FD as a recruiting tool. You could provide the photos, and offer the community an important service.

As mentioned above, I hadn't really considered this. But I think it is worth considering. I'll start checking with our company guys about what we can do to get some type of compensation to the fire company from the paper(s).

[sfaust]

An agreement for them to use them only would be difficult to enforce.

On the contrary, the photography industry is built upon the usage model, and every assignment is covered under such an agreement. When an editorial assignment is performed, an agreement is drafted that limits the usage to that agreed upon between the magazine and photographer. Typically, it amounts to a one time use, for that magazine only, and includes limits on placement, size, country or region, language, etc. Ie, one time use, cover image, north america, english language, no electronic rights, no third party transfers. Pretty typical agreement.

spkerer, you own the copyright to the images. You can license them in any manner you so choose. All you have to do is write up the agreement spelling out exactly what uses are allowed, as the default is no use at all.

So if you only want your local paper to have access to it, you can stipulate that usage is granted only for publication in XYZ newspaper, all other rights are reserved, no third party rights are granted, and copyright remains the property of the photographer.

It is just about that simple, and totally enforceable.

[mattograph]

Hello Stephen

Thank you for stopping in. Your offer a better informed and substantive opinion than I on this subject matter.

With that said, let me explain my comments a bit further -- if they are still inaccurate, please advise.

My "difficult to enforce" comment derives from the fact that the OP wanted to draw up an agreement that provided the images to the paper for free. In my limited PJ work, I have never seen a "free" contract; all have been standard fare which have offered compensation and rights protection as you have described above.

So, to do a "free" agreement of any substance would require counsel and customization.

Enforce was a bad word -- execute would have been better.

I would still recommend a standard agreement, with the compensation being donated back to the department -- those stimulus funds won't last forever!

[breal101]

I have a question, say the OP does get some sort of contract with the paper for little or no compensation and limited usage to said paper. What would happen if he submitted pictures from a nationally important event. Just as an example, a drunken Senator and his mistress go off a bridge (this could never happen, right? :lol:). He gets exclusive pictures, it seems to me the paper would be under tremendous pressure to put the pictures on the wire. Just say they bow to the pressure and do that, would he be entitled to compensation?

[sfaust]

Unfortunately, there really is no standard agreement with regard to usage. But one doesn't need compensation or counsel in order to grant usage, or solidify an agreement either.

All that is needed is a clear and concise written agreement that both parties agree to and sign. As long as both parties understand the agreement, it is specific and concise, parties are of legal age and enter into it voluntarily, its completely enforceable. Even a verbal agreement is enforceable, it's just hard to prove it was made and what the exact terms were.

In this case, the agreement would be pretty simple to execute since its pretty cut and dried with regard to usage. The key is to be very explicit on what is allowed, since anything not spelled out is by default excluded. It also helps to re-state the obvious exclusions as well. Such as;

Company TRW can use the images ONLY in the publication named XYZ.
The time limit specified (forever, 1 year, on issue, etc)
Compensation, if any, in the form of (money, credit line, services, etc)
Copyright remains with the photographer.
No other use of the image is granted without written authorization.
All other rights reserved.

They would have a hard time arguing that using the image by their sister company that publishes a magazine called ABC was within the agreement.

Counsel is definitely recommended when things get complicated, such as on large complex commercial or advertising projects. But in general, usage agreements are written and modified by commercial photographers all the time. Since each project and usage is different, it would be too costly to have a lawyer review and write the usage on each project.

I have a question, say the OP does get some sort of contract with the paper for little or no compensation and limited usage to said paper. What would happen if he submitted pictures from a nationally important event. Just as an example, a drunken Senator and his mistress go off a bridge (this could never happen, right? ). He gets exclusive pictures, it seems to me the paper would be under tremendous pressure to put the pictures on the wire. Just say they bow to the pressure and do that, would he be entitled to compensation?

Regardless of the pressure the paper is under to submit them to the wire, they can't. If they do, they have violated his copyright and he has a just cause for litigation and is in a very good position to boot. The damages will be high, they violated the usage agreement, and voluntarily infringed on his copyright.

I would not recommend that he sign a contract with the paper. He should do as he is doing now, shooting for the volunteer fire department and not the paper. He can then give the images to he paper on a case by case basis with a limited usage agreement as was being discussed above. That way he always has a choice on what he wishes to do with the images, and is not bound by the paper for which he is not receiving any compensation.

In that case, he is then under no obligation to give the images to the paper at all. If he shot something of national interest, his best bet would be to go direct to the wire services, news agencies, etc, and negotiate the best deal he can (better yet, use an agent).

[Lunajen]

Something to think about, how small is the town and does the paper have the money to pay you for your work?

In my town I get a very small fee for working freelance for the paper, but he lets me keep the rights to all my photos and I sell them on my website. It could be worse but last week half the paper were my images.... :)

[spkerer]

Something to think about, how small is the town and does the paper have the money to pay you for your work?

I honestly don't know. The Loudoun Times Mirror (county paper) reported in the last couple of months that the Leesburg Today (town paper) filed for bankruptcy. I think the town paper has been bought by another group. So I have no idea about whether they have the money to pay.