So you spend some time snapping some good shots for mates....you send them to them without watermarks cos that's what mates do....then you see your photo published with no credit winning your mate a small prize - is my mate a douche for not crediting the photo to me ? Should he give me the prize he won ? Should he have asked permission before submitting my work ? Should I just stop whining about it ? Fire away !

If he did intend to shaft you, then you should cut him away.

This happened to me about 3 years ago though, to their credit, they included my name but still tried to stealth my prize away!

My brother in law was sitting in the lunchroom flicking through a spearfishing mag on the other side of the country when he saw my photo had won a brand new speargun. The credit going to me, the prize going ......elsewhere

Let's just say I now have a new speargun, the brother in law has beer and ol Captain Lightfingers has a new spear

After all he did enter the comp!

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Leroy B said...

This happened to me about 3 years ago though, to their credit, they included my name but still tried to stealth my prize away!

My brother in law was sitting in the lunchroom flicking through a spearfishing mag on the other side of the country when he saw my photo had won a brand new speargun. The credit going to me, the prize going ......elsewhere

Let's just say I now have a new speargun, the brother in law has beer and ol Captain Lightfingers has a new spear

After all he did enter the comp!

There are actually a couple of legal issues to what your mate did. Most photo related comps include the following kinds of clauses:

8. By submitting the Photo to the Promoter, you grant the Promoter and its licensees and assignees a non-exclusive licence to exercise all rights in perpetuity throughout the world in the Photo and all other material provided by you to the Promoter at any time.
9. Without limiting the rights granted to the Promoter under point 8, you specifically agree that point 8 grants to the Promoter the non-exclusive right throughout the world to communicate the Photo in whole or in part to the public on any media platform and you grant to the Promoter all associated rights necessary to exercise the above rights.

and...

(iii) the Photo is an original work;
(iv) you are the copyright owner or authorised licensor of all copyright works and subject matter comprising the Photo;

Now, there are two legal issues:

1. Your mate is granting them rights to use the photo in any format, commercial and non-commercial so he's effectively signed over all rights to that photo to them. They have the ability to sell the photo to a stock agency, take all the money for the return of it and they could make a million without giving you anything.

2. He is saying he is the authorised licensor and/or copyright owner which is not correct. He doesn't own the photo, he is not the licensor and he doesn't have the legal right to give away anything.

So, yes, you actually have a full legal right to claim the prize from him in return for the fact that he's actually just given away ownership and commercial rights to that photo to someone completely random because this is the way most photo comps work. Check the terms and conditions of the competition because in some cases, he may have actually signed your rights away to use it personally. Personally, for not asking your permission first he should consider himself a dick and deserves to lose the prize.

In future, to prevent this, as part and parcel of most cameras, you should have the ability to hardcode the copyright into the exif data. You need to assign it in the following format or its not considered legal

Copyright 2012 Name

In addition to this, you can also hardcode additional info like your email and legal usage (IPTC Core data) so that if they submit it, the guys will be aware that its not their photo. Its worth doing this in future to protect yourself.

**** him off.

who needs friends anyway???

Take a photo of you pegging his missus and send that into the 'picture' magazine and hope you win $200

Dude that is kinda screwed.. Like saffer says there are heaps of legal clauses protecting your work, but asides from that there's a gentlemans code (or lady's guidelines if you will)...

I'm a very amateur photographer and have a heap of folk seeking my work for memorabilia sake.. I tend to leave a very discrete water mark on all pics that I distribute.. However I let ppl know that it's there and tell them that if they want to copy, enlarge or recreate the work in any way then they can contact me and I will facilitate it.

Facilitating this for me means that I will make enlargements for them at cost price, or if they want to use it for any other purpose I will issue them a letter stating the intended purpose they have purveyed to me and any clauses, plus state that the intended purpose is the ONLY purpose by which permission to use my work is granted.

Your mate may be kinda a douche, alternatively he may have just not realized that he is both stealing and being a prick to a mate.. Take it up with him..

Let us know the result

Oh yeah!! Think saffer is saying similar or same thing, but you can imbed metadata on a pic. I do this when I transfer it from my camera to the computer (I use Adobe Lightroom to do this but most programs should do it in a similar way).. It's hidden data that identifies copyright info.. Google metadata and the name of your program or look on online tutorials of your program and you should find it easy enough :)

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loverboy said...
Should I just stop whining about it ? Fire away !

Just be happy that your pic was published.

That's the true pay-off for any artist, right ?

...To be self-satisfied and proud of your work.

had a local unknown to me at the time approach me with a piece of paper to sign asking for permission to use some photos that hed taken, i was chuffed that hed taken them and told him to do what he liked after all hed spent his time and money on equipment all i was doing was having a ball, he posted them on flicker , dont know what camera he had but the detail and quality was superb you could see every droplet of spray coming off my board, i was just happy to think i was decent enough rider for him to shoot

I saw a photo I took of a sponsored female kiter on a poster for Burn energy drink (coca cola) the other day... At least a credit for the photo would have been nice.

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sir ROWDY said...

I saw a photo I took of a sponsored female kiter on a poster for Burn energy drink (coca cola) the other day... At least a credit for the photo would have been nice.

If they have already used it without your permission you can send them a bill for it. Photographer's rights are very protected in Australia and the going rate for a photo for commercial use could be a couple of grand. Pays for a new kite and its not like you have to worry about repeat business.

hahaha, true that Saffer. Although the ad is European, but I guess they have similar laws. I will ask my friend about it first and she what she thinks haha. Don't want to get anyone in the sh!t.

Yeh getting youre photos published is a blast. i ve had a few in kite mag and sup mag.
But thats not why i spent 20k on gear.Its the blast you get from being involved.A photographer has to understand condition/light and most important where and when the subjects going to do their money shot. By that i mean if its a beginner hes first jump. If its a pro some thing new ect ect. Its this part that is the joy of a snapper.
I post all my photos for free on Tribecarew.com. My stoke is when some one wants a copy.
No good dying rich if you haven't got a smile on ya dile

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pgc said...

Yeh getting youre photos published is a blast. i ve had a few in kite mag and sup mag.
But thats not why i spent 20k on gear.Its the blast you get from being involved.A photographer has to understand condition/light and most important where and when the subjects going to do their money shot. By that i mean if its a beginner hes first jump. If its a pro some thing new ect ect. Its this part that is the joy of a snapper.
I post all my photos for free on Tribecarew.com. My stoke is when some one wants a copy.
No good dying rich if you haven't got a smile on ya dile

Yup, but it doesn't take away the fact that common courtesy would dictate that if someone else is going to benefit financially from your investment (and/or hard work), they should probably ask you first.

In the case of the original topic, it would have taken 5 minutes for the guy to call or sms and ask about using the picture, if the prize was small, then the photographer probably wouldn't have complained, but he may have wanted to check the terms and conditions because as mentioned, in a lot of cases, photographic comps by commercial bodies are actually a means to try get harvest a lot of free stock photos without having to pay for them. Stock commercial photos can cost an organisation up to $1000/photo. Using a comp they get a couple of hundred (of which maybe 10% are decent) and they give away a $1000 prize to get access to them. Depending on the photo, retaining the commercial rights to the photo may have been important. There was a recent case of a person who gave away the rights to a photo to Getty for $5000 and its now made Getty over a million dollars. How would you feel if you took a photo of me, I gave it away to a commercial body and they sold the photo for a couple of hundred grand and everything happened without your permission?

In the second case of a commercial organisation using the photo without permission, thats actually unforgivable and any organisation the size of that mentioned would be aware of it.

Is it true you were stalking this guy paparazzi like??

Apparently he gets a $15 tshirt from the win and I was told he put you down as the person taking the image????

Maybe you should take some beers over to his house and discuss the matter, maybe build a deck and an add on to his shed and mend those wounds??? Then watch the Dockers smash Adelaide on Friday night!!!!

Nice photo though

Thanks Saffer you really know your stuff in this area, yeah I was pi##ed but my mates were even more pi##ed and so we went and 'got the gun....speargun' that is!

After forking out for all the camera gear it's great to see there are laws to protect your work.

I did however manage one of my favourite pics from the session, the biggest bronzy he'd ever seen snuck up behind me and so I have a pic of him pulling the tuna he'd shot desperately to his chest and pointing wide eyed behind me........in a perfect world the bronzy would have snuck up on him instead......

If you are a pro, water mark your pictures, if not be stoked your mate got the pic the exposure that it would have never got without his assistance.
Chill,

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cauncy said...

had a local unknown to me at the time approach me with a piece of paper to sign asking for permission to use some photos that hed taken, i was chuffed that hed taken them and told him to do what he liked after all hed spent his time and money on equipment all i was doing was having a ball, he posted them on flicker , dont know what camera he had but the detail and quality was superb you could see every droplet of spray coming off my board, i was just happy to think i was decent enough rider for him to shoot

What about this scenario, must happen all the time. Does a photographer have to credit the subject if its a person kitesurfing, that they submitted to a comp or for publication?

People in public or anywhere can be photographed and the image belongs to the photographer yeah, or nah?

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Kitepower Australia said...

cauncy said...

had a local unknown to me at the time approach me with a piece of paper to sign asking for permission to use some photos that hed taken, i was chuffed that hed taken them and told him to do what he liked after all hed spent his time and money on equipment all i was doing was having a ball, he posted them on flicker , dont know what camera he had but the detail and quality was superb you could see every droplet of spray coming off my board, i was just happy to think i was decent enough rider for him to shoot

What about this scenario, must happen all the time. Does a photographer have to credit the subject if its a person kitesurfing, that they submitted to a comp or for publication?

People in public or anywhere can be photographed and the image belongs to the photographer yeah, or nah?

not if your on the local bus or shopping mall and the camera's in your shoe

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Kitepower Australia said...

cauncy said...

had a local unknown to me at the time approach me with a piece of paper to sign asking for permission to use some photos that hed taken, i was chuffed that hed taken them and told him to do what he liked after all hed spent his time and money on equipment all i was doing was having a ball, he posted them on flicker , dont know what camera he had but the detail and quality was superb you could see every droplet of spray coming off my board, i was just happy to think i was decent enough rider for him to shoot

What about this scenario, must happen all the time. Does a photographer have to credit the subject if its a person kitesurfing, that they submitted to a comp or for publication?

People in public or anywhere can be photographed and the image belongs to the photographer yeah, or nah?

Australia has no specific law aimed at preventing the unauthorised use of your image so yeah, someone can take your photo and use it if the photo is taken in a public place. There are provisions for defamation however so if a photo paints a person a wrong light, there could be issues.

It is a bit of a grey area though, because you can take a photo in public and publish it, but you can't take someone's photo and use the photo for an advertising campaign without a model release. I.e. I can take your photo while kiting and publish it in Kitemag (and get paid for it), but I can't put it in a Cabrinha advert in the mag (unless the person cannot be recognized in the picture).

So, in short, if the guy wanted your release for the photo, he probably wants to submit it to a stock website or use it for commercial purposes for advertising.