Ownership of Rights for a Band's Photos

I'm mostly a wedding photographer. A local band approached me because some major record labels (Sony, etc.) are in advanced talks about signing and promoting them.

When I shoot a wedding, my contract reads that I and the client share personal ownership of these images and they're free to copy and print them for personal use. However, only I retain commercial rights to these images and am the only one who can sell them.

What is customary for pictures of a band? I have to imagine that Grossman exclusively owns the commercial rights to the photos he shot of the Beatles; he can put them on shirts and posters and sell them at his discretion without further permission from the Fab Four?

Even if that's typically true, I'll need some dilenation in my agreement. The band is taking these photos for the purpose of using them on their album/CD, posters promoting a tour and appearances, and other promotional material. But this is different from shirts and posters, etc., where a product is being bought and sold based on an image I created.

So thoughts on the right and fair approach as well as language to dilenate between the two commercial purposes? Thanks.

Peacefield wrote in post #17052601
When I shoot a wedding, my contract reads that I and the client share personal ownership of these images

To the best of my knowledge you can't share the ownership/copyright.

I think what you are looking to do is license the photos to the band for commercial use. The terms of the contract will state the amount of use ("up to 5,000 cd covers", etc,) and the length of time they can use them.

This falls kinda on the commercial work side.

There are a few options in general:

1. You sell the full copyright of the photos to the band, but retain self promotion rights. As in you can't sell further the pictures you took, but can use them to self promote on different medias, put them on your site and so on.

2. You retain the copyright but sell them a lifetime or limited time licensing for the photos for self promotion.
This means the copyright is yours, but you give them a license to use the photos for promotion which you can specify to include album covers, posters, fliers and amounts, but they are not allowed to sell or use the photos to a 3rd party, meaning they can't use them to sell shirts, merchandise and so on. You can limit the time, amount depends no what you prefer.

3. You can sell a limited license to use the photos for both promotion and certain types of merchandise if you wish for a limited time, limited types of merchandise, or request a fee per amount of sold merchandise (as in "sell X amount of shirts with my photo, pay me Y amount of money") or limit the amount they can print by contract (will be hard to follow in the future though).

Exact contract can vary from country to county so I can't give an exact wording, but this is the major idea. You can still retain copyright but sell them a license of use.

For a new band who wants self promotion, option 2 is mostly useful. Of course you have to specify that they can't use the photos for merchandise. And if they do, its a different type of contract.
But if you are afraid they will still use the photos for shirts and posters to sell their fans, you might consider option 3, or option 1 for a higher price of your work, in case they will become famous in the future so you won't feel "I sold it for cheap".

This has been helpful; thanks, everyone.

A smart music artist or any other business will only agree to a contract that gives it unrestricted rights to publish/promote/mercha​ndise any commercial images. Any smart business will also never license the use of it's trademark name for merchandise without a significant fee. A regular model release from each of the band members would not give you permission to use the trademark name of the band without a license for anything other than fine art prints with no logos. Merchandise is the largest and most profitable stream of revenue for all artists, so your vision of selling posters and other merchandise with the photos and band trademark name will not happen without an expensive license.

In the US, multiple entities can share copyright. This has the effect of requiring the written permission of all copyright owners to grant any license rights or transfers, which is often problematic and gets harder over long periods of time.

Its is common for a commercial client such as a band to require full and unrestricted commercial use rights, which should have great value and not provided cheaply. As in all work you do, you should retain rights to use the images in your portfolio and advertising, and their business/artist name in your client list and bio.

Most commercial photographers charge 3-4X a normal session fee to provide unrestricted commercial use licenses. This is often a challenge for small businesses such as bands. You would be smart to consult an IP lawyer to draft a commercial use license appropriate for your state and client. There is a good online ASMP resource for photo licensing

http://asmp.org …license.html#.U​9EU7bGTKrg

Since this style of photography seems far outside the photography on your website, I would try to come to a basic agreement on price and licensing terms before consulting a lawyer. Most artists will work with photographers who already have more solid experience in the industry.

memoriesoftomorrow wrote in post #17052775
To the best of my knowledge you can't share the ownership/copyright.

It's relatively rare, but possible.

This article, written by a for-really-reals lawyer, cites some case law where the courts found the copyright ownership to be jointly held:
http://iobject.pro/?p=​110

+1 to all Scott wrote.

Basically you are doing a commercial shoot. You are shooting a product images that will be used to promote/package a product. It is just like an image for a shampoo commercial except the product happens to be a band. The image(s) will be used to package their CDs and promote the CDs and the band. You should cost the job the same as any commercial shoot based on where it will be used and how many copies.

sspellman wrote in post #17052878
A smart music artist or any other business will only agree to a contract that gives it unrestricted rights to publish/promote/mercha​ndise any commercial images. Any smart business will also never license the use of it's trademark name for merchandise without a significant fee. A regular model release from each of the band members would not give you permission to use the trademark name of the band without a license for anything other than fine art prints with no logos. Merchandise is the largest and most profitable stream of revenue for all artists, so your vision of selling posters and other merchandise with the photos and band trademark name will not happen without an expensive license.

In the US, multiple entities can share copyright. This has the effect of requiring the written permission of all copyright owners to grant any license rights or transfers, which is often problematic and gets harder over long periods of time.

Its is common for a commercial client such as a band to require full and unrestricted commercial use rights, which should have great value and not provided cheaply. As in all work you do, you should retain rights to use the images in your portfolio and advertising, and their business/artist name in your client list and bio.

Most commercial photographers charge 3-4X a normal session fee to provide unrestricted commercial use licenses. This is often a challenge for small businesses such as bands. You would be smart to consult an IP lawyer to draft a commercial use license appropriate for your state and client. There is a good online ASMP resource for photo licensing

http://asmp.org …license.html#.U​9EU7bGTKrg

Since this style of photography seems far outside the photography on your website, I would try to come to a basic agreement on price and licensing terms before consulting a lawyer. Most artists will work with photographers who already have more solid experience in the industry.