Great British Life : Image Rights Grab

Professional Photographer magazine is published by Archant - so much for working for photographers! Worth writing to the editor too maybe?
 
I would guess that this is more of a cock up than a deliberate rights grab. When you ask your company solicitors to draw up a rule that allows you to use entries in the magazine, that's what you get. It's indefensible, but that's probably what happened.

They are demanding a free license to use, which is not the same as copyright. It's grabbing free content for them sure enough, which is not brilliant news, but I don't think there is anything more sinister.

It happens all the time, sadly. It is particularly embarrasing that they also publish Professional Photographer magazine, the trade mag BPI News, and the big selling consumer mag Photography Monthly.

I would have thought an email to the editor of PM would sort it out.
 
HoppyUK said:
I would guess that this is more of a cock up than a deliberate rights grab. When you ask your company solicitors to draw up a rule that allows you to use entries in the magazine, that's what you get. It's indefensible, but that's probably what happened.

They are demanding a free license to use, which is not the same as copyright. It's grabbing free content for them sure enough, which is not brilliant news, but I don't think there is anything more sinister.

It happens all the time, sadly. It is particularly embarrasing that they also publish Professional Photographer magazine, the trade mag BPI News, and the big selling consumer mag Photography Monthly.

I would have thought an email to the editor of PM would sort it out.
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Hoppy, rights grabs and ruses to get free content do happen all the time, like the orphan works legislation going through parliament.

And photographers, in their own rather disorganised fashion, are trying to do something about it. Why not support them?
 
jerry12953 said:
Hoppy, rights grabs and ruses to get free content do happen all the time, like the orphan works legislation going through parliament.

And photographers, in their own rather disorganised fashion, are trying to do something about it. Why not support them?
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I thought my suggestion to contact the editor of PM was supporting them? I don't think this clause is an attempt to rip people off in the way perhaps it reads to the likes of folks here.

But it is far too all embracing and open to potential abuse. Stuff like that should be upfront and not hidden in the fine print. It needs to say clearly "we want to publish your pictures, and we hope you want to see them published too and maybe win a prize, but we're not paying for them." Then people can make their own judgement. For the majority of potential contributors, they will be actually be very happy with that, the ego boost is payment enough, but it needs to be clearly stated.

Maybe where we differ Jerry is that I can understand where the publisher is coming from with this. Some perhaps think they are greedy fat cats living a life of luxury and screwing anybody and everybody, but I know Archant (well, some bits of it) and the division this magazine comes from is full of tin-pot regional magazines scrabbling along on next to nothing. Closer to home, Archant have moved offices in the last few months, vacating expensive premises in the home counties for a cheaper place out west. A lot of people have been made redundant as a result, including some close friends of mine. That is the flipside reality of publishing these days.

This is a new launch of a relatively tiny circulation magazine. They just don't have any freelance budget - if it was costed into the business plan, the magazine would simply never exist. It will be losing money at launch, might never make a profit, and may not make it long term.

New magazine launches are speculative and very risky - statistically, most fail. Naturally enough, unless you work in the industry you never hear about them.
 
Bang blooming out of order but sadly all to common. :(
 
HoppyUK said:
I thought my suggestion to contact the editor of PM was supporting them? I don't think this clause is an attempt to rip people off in the way perhaps it reads to the likes of folks here.

But it is far too all embracing and open to potential abuse. Stuff like that should be upfront and not hidden in the fine print. It needs to say clearly "we want to publish your pictures, and we hope you want to see them published too and maybe win a prize, but we're not paying for them." Then people can make their own judgement. For the majority of potential contributors, they will be actually be very happy with that, the ego boost is payment enough, but it needs to be clearly stated.

Maybe where we differ Jerry is that I can understand where the publisher is coming from with this. Some perhaps think they are greedy fat cats living a life of luxury and screwing anybody and everybody, but I know Archant (well, some bits of it) and the division this magazine comes from is full of tin-pot regional magazines scrabbling along on next to nothing. Closer to home, Archant have moved offices in the last few months, vacating expensive premises in the home counties for a cheaper place out west. A lot of people have been made redundant as a result, including some close friends of mine. That is the flipside reality of publishing these days.

This is a new launch of a relatively tiny circulation magazine. They just don't have any freelance budget - if it was costed into the business plan, the magazine would simply never exist. It will be losing money at launch, might never make a profit, and may not make it long term.

New magazine launches are speculative and very risky - statistically, most fail. Naturally enough, unless you work in the industry you never hear about them.
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Hoppy, we've had several discussions on here about copyright and similar issues, which just about stayed on the right side of amicable, so I'll be very careful with what I say here.

I understand that you've spent most of your working life in magazine publishing, in fact I seem to remember your name from one of the photo mags from way back when I was starting out in photography.

It seems though that every time one of these issues comes up, your sympathies still lie with publishing and publishers, rather than photographers, which is what I can't understand.

For example, you'd rather see a magazine surviving, using free images from photographers who don't know any better, than see staff go out on the dole or have to find another job. Fair enough. But the other side of that picture is that photographers who would otherwise be able to earn a living selling images to magazines like that, have to stack shelves instead.

That is the reality of photography as a business!

:schtum:
 
jerry12953 said:
Hoppy, we've had several discussions on here about copyright and similar issues, which just about stayed on the right side of amicable, so I'll be very careful with what I say here.

I understand that you've spent most of your working life in magazine publishing, in fact I seem to remember your name from one of the photo mags from way back when I was starting out in photography.

It seems though that every time one of these issues comes up, your sympathies still lie with publishing and publishers, rather than photographers, which is what I can't understand.

For example, you'd rather see a magazine surviving, using free images from photographers who don't know any better, than see staff go out on the dole or have to find another job. Fair enough. But the other side of that picture is that photographers who would otherwise be able to earn a living selling images to magazines like that, have to stack shelves instead.

That is the reality of photography as a business!

:schtum:
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If you want to put it like that Jerry, then maybe. Not a pleasant choice is it; I don't want to see anybody out of work. It's just a judgement call on balance.

I'm actually trying not to take sides, because both sides have a valid point that can never be reconciled. I think I come across in the way you describe because I present an alternantive view, which I believe presents some uaseful balance on here, because I have sat on both sides of the fence and appreciate both arguments.

But, and this is a big but, my overriding belief is that the world has changed dramaticaly and we all have to fit ourselves to the new way of doing things. Blame the internet if you like, I spent a long time doing that myself, but it's just not helpful.

I'm never going to fall out with you Jerry. As you know, we are soul mates separated at birth by just three days, and I am pretty thick skinned :D If I could turn the clock back to the 1980s, when Practical Photography, the magazine you perhaps remember, was the biggest selling photo mag in Europe and made a very large amount of money, I most certainly would. But in saying that, every penny that PP made was ploughed back into the business which then grew from a couple of hundred staff to over 4,000 at its international peak, with a £1bn turnover. It's a remarkable story, sadly not with a happy ending.

In contrast, another magazine that I launched in 1979, Camera, never, ever made a bean and was ultimately morphed in Photo Answers (which now exists only as a website) after losing hundreds of thousands of pounds. We always paid for pictures, as a matter of principle...
 
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