April 12, 2009 by pmelcher.

If you thought that the money you had given to this or that photo trade organization was useful, think again. ASMP, APA, EP, PPA, WHNPA, SA, and all of the other siblings are guilty of the same crime. Silence. Chris Usher has lost his appeal after a seven year battle against Corbis and each of his 12,640 images lost will be compensated for a lousy $7.00 a piece.

(see previous post for more detailed explanation)

This ruling means that from now on, any agency, any magazine, any publisher will never have to worry about losing your photographs, since it will cost them peanuts to pay you back. It will be cheaper for them to trash them then returning them to you.

Also guilty are PDN, supposedly a trade news magazine, and other photography blogs, that are more interested in getting volumes of traffic to please their advertiser rather than report fairly on this industry.

They should all be put on the wall of shame for ignoring one of the longest and possibly important case in modern photography. Chris Usher was maybe crazy to take on the infinite cash Corbis but he did what he thought was a fair battle and lost. Not just because he couldn’t afford a legal team as powerful as the Bill Gates funded Corbis, but also because everyone ignore his battle, probably thinking it was a personal one.

In times where it is even more challenging to be a photographer than ever before, it is sad to see how helpless this industry has become, especially on the photographer’s side. It is sad to see how apathetic everyone is in face of challenges that will surely, one day, affect them too. Finally, it sad to see that, in the face of adversity, a photographer has no friends.

Posted in photojournalism, license, copyright, finance, transaction, news, law, editorial, corbis | Print | 4 Comments »

April 3, 2009 by pmelcher.

While the world of photography was busy trying to figure out how to squeeze one more dollar out of every image, pointing the fingers at potential scammers, or listing, day after, the name and addresses of every single newspaper closing its door, the hallways of the supreme court justice in Manhattan echoed of the fainted footsteps of a mostly forgotten, yet highly important case.

A very well to do photo agency, back in the days when it was still trying to make a dent in the news editorial market had reached out to a very talented photographer based in the nation’s capital, Washington DC. Having lost its main contributor in the White House, it  called for the service of an already well implemented and well establish photographer to cover the ins and outs of the political establishment. The photographer, already the recipient of many many assignments from top news publication like Time, Newsweek, Us World and many more, thought, at the time, “hey , why not”.For him, it was an opportunity to grow his reach worldwide, or so he thought.

In these days, film was still mainly used , and so he submitted many of his archives, and his recent work, in slide and film format. The well to do agency had a battery of photo editors looking at the material and selecting the ones to be scanned to be added to its online delivery system.

Time went by, and after 16 months, not seeing any tangible results , the photographer decided to terminate the relationship. Up to now, nothing special.

But upon termination, he was incapable of getting all his images back. Not a few, but more than 12,000 of them. Gone, vanished, disappeared. At first, the well to do agency denied any wrongdoing or hugely minimized the count. That didn’t work too well. They were found guilty for the whole amount.

Lets take a pause here. 12,000 slides, or negatives, that is a lot. out of 50,000 submitted. Its not one slide that fell  behind the back of the lightbox. Its 12,000 of them. well 12,640 exactly.

Out of all the images submitted, only 763 were scanned to be put on the website and thus attempted to be sold. Less than 1%. Either the photographer was really, really  bad, or the editors were really, really lazy. Or, very simply, the big wealthy company was so overwhelmed with images to scan from everywhere that they just couldn’t do more.

My take is on the last option.

Anyway, guilty of lost of images, the Photo Agency and the photographer went on to quantify the lost. How much ?

That is always an ongoing issue, isn’t it ? How to quantify the value of an image if it has never been sold and cannot even be seen by anyone anymore? Some of these images could have been  masterpieces or just  plain film in a mount.

Of course, the Big Photo Agency took the low approach. In a nutshell, backed by “experts”, they figured out how much money they made with the photographers work over 16 months and added some . After 2 years of testimony, a Judge declared that $100,000 was a fair compensation. A mere  $7.26 per roll of 36 frames  !!! including processing.  If you can make a deal like that, its worth dropping digital and going back to shooting film.

Obviously, the photographer was in shock. Never in the history of lost film was an award been so low.  Here is one of the issue : Because the amount of images lost is so high, a more regular award of lets say, $400 per image ( still low) would quickly bring the total to Millions of dollars. Usually people loose a few images. or a few hundred. but not 12, 000 !!!

So, the judge was trying to make an overall acceptable amount instead of looking at the details. For the photographer, the lost of income is almost incalculable. It’s blood ( hopefully, not to much), sweat ( a lot) and tears ( especially after hearing the judgment). An appeal has been made, obviously.

The big bad unprofitable photo agency has a battery of full time lawyers that have nothing else to do then to drag this forever. The photographer, well, not really. This has been going on for 7 years now with more than 10,000 documents and a battery of witnesses. And it ’s not over.

Why is this important ? Because, like any judgment, this will become a judicial reference. If the Agency gets away by paying  $7.36 for 36 frames, then subsequently, all lost images in the future will be awarded accordingly. And that affects every single photographer out there. Like any other trade profession, ones work should be respected to its real value. Not just for the cost of the support it lays upon.

What is even more upsetting here is that this appeal went on completely silently in the industry. Instead, everyone is busy looking at their navels, making sure their backyards is clean. This should be everywhere, talked about in all trade association and debated publicly. There is no predefined amount, obviously, and determining it is very difficult. But since it will affect everyone, it should be everyone responsibility to join the debate.

Posted in newspaper, license, copyright, Newsweek, TIME, photojournalism, news, law, transaction, finance, corbis | Print | 3 Comments »

April 2, 2009 by pmelcher.

In a surprising move, we just heard that the NFL has apparently canceled the deal they had sign with Getty Images back in 2004. This is a big blow for the Mega agency who could lose millions of dollars in annual revenues. It is not clear who has picked up the deal, but rumors tend to confirmed it might be Associated Press.

Getty Images had signed a non exclusive agreement, back in 2004, with the NFL ( National Football League) regarding syndication of the leagues images. At the time, they had battled hard and long with Mediavast, which they have since acquired. The deal had included large guarantees and had generated a ton of protest, mostly from photographers. It is largely assumed that it was a major profit center for the Seattle-based company.

It is not only a huge blow for the Getty revenue stream, who had partially build itself as the aggregate of all things sports, but also for its branding . Along with Baseball ( MLB) , Hockey ( NHL)   and Basketball ( NBA),  American Football is one of the most followed sport in the USA. Will these other leagues  follow ?

Posted in license, magazine, transaction, editorial, news, getty | Print | 4 Comments »

April 2, 2009 by pmelcher.

Just heard about this today and while it is a little late in the game, it is still interesting. Did not read about it anywhere else.

The idea is quite simple. you submit  a project you really want to shoot, post it and have people vote for it. There is no portfolio review, at least not yet, to see if you are capable of shooting it. the 20 top ones, that is the ones with the most votes are then reviewed by a panel of judges and the winner gets $50,000 and a cool Levono Photo laptop . Voting ends April 3 so hurry up.

Posted in magazine, technology, web 2.0, photojournalism, editorial, finance, news | Print | No Comments »