Ensuring Digital Signature Legality for Photo Licensing Agreements

How to eSign a document: digital signature legality for Photo Licensing Agreement

the subject of licensing as it relates to photography can be confusing and rightfully so it's not the easiest subject to understand and very few people are thoroughly familiar with the topic unfortunately though because of this unfamiliarity many individuals and businesses make assumptions and they end up using or distributing photos that they're really not supposed to now i will break down the subject of licensing photography and try to explain some of the basics but honestly i could spoil this whole video by providing you with one simple question that you can answer yourself if there is an image or a set of images in question that you would like to use commercially or distribute to another party for them to use commercially the question is this do you have clear written permission from the original photographer to do so if the answer is yes you're good to go but if the answer is no then before you do anything with the images you need to obtain that permission from the photographer and individuals who are uneducated about licensing usually ask why why in the world do i need to get permission from the photographer because of one word copyright a majority of the time the photographer still holds the copyright or owns those images and this this is where most of the confusion comes from you see the product that we create as photographers is very different than a hard good or something you could pick up off a store shelf you pay for an iphone at the apple store that's your property you could then later on give it or sell it to somebody else for them to use you can do the same with your car or furniture you get the idea photographs are different though photos fall under the category of what's called intellectual property or often shortened to just ip these are things that are created that you can't necessarily hold in your hand things like trademarks and patents also fall under the category of ip you know you actually deal with ip on a pretty regular basis and may not even know it setting photos aside there's a good chance you already pay to utilize intellectual property that you don't own music is considered intellectual property but even though you may pay roughly ten dollars for adele's new album you don't now own the copyright to adele's songs software is considered intellectual property if you or your company pays for crm software or accounting software like quickbooks you don't own or hold the copyright to that software you may not know it but in those scenarios the fine print states that what you are actually paying for is a license and a license is simply a contract granting legal permission to listen watch use or utilize somebody else's intellectual property if a real estate agent pays a photographer to shoot a property if an interior designer pays a photographer to shoot a living room if an architect pays a photographer to shoot a new commercial building downtown 90 some percent of the time the photographer still owns and holds the copyright to those images their clients are paying the photographers for a license to use the photos that they create the clients do not own the images outright and before you go thinking this is some new modern day concept created by photographers in the digital age rest assured laws around copyright have been around for a very very very long time in fact in the united states the basics of copyright law have their roots in the constitution copyright law also grants photographers the ability to give their clients specific permissions on what they can do with the images for instance if an interior designer hires a photographer to shoot a project that photographer typically grants them a license to use the images on their social media their website print materials etc kind of boilerplate stuff but most of the time that license does not grant the interior designer the ability to distribute the photos to other parties for them to use the interior designer does not have the automatic right to allow other instagram accounts to repost the photographer's image the interior designer does not have the right to give the photos to a furniture company for them to use on their website and the majority of the time the interior designer does not have the automatic right to enter those photos into some kind of contest or even place them in an editorial piece in each one of those scenarios that third party involved needs to obtain some kind of written permission directly from the photographer not the interior designer and yes many times those third parties would need to pay some kind of licensing fee but if a photographer is paid by the business that originally commissioned them for the shoot why would they charge another company who wants to use some of those same photos i'm just gonna say it this argument is kind of silly i honestly don't know of any other kind of for-profit business that follows this model if you are in some sort of company or business or own a company or business and say 10 people pop up that want your product or service well more than likely those 10 people are going to pay for that product or service if 500 people pop up and want that same product or service those 500 people are going to have to pay for it i'll give you a real life example here in kansas city we have a fairly well-known band named hembree several years ago hembree put out a song called holy water the band they sold a few records they got a good amount of downloads they made some money from the song aka they got paid not long after the release apple approaches them to use that song in a commercial that's going to air during the biggest football game of the year yeah that one do you think apple approached them with that argument hey henry you already made money you already got paid for the song why would you charge us to use that song in our commercial in fact you should let us use it for free it's gonna be great exposure for you of course not apple obtained a license to use that song well wait a minute i'm very confused we've never had a photographer request that we pay for a license to use a photo most photographers are okay with us using their images as long as we give them credit or tag or mention them on social media you know in fact i'm pretty sure as long as an image is on social media anybody could use it well you would be 100 wrong i don't care what you heard from some friend or what some article said if you read the actual terms and conditions or terms of use from all the major social media platforms none of them say that granted some individuals are thrown off by this because maybe it's only up until recently they've ever had a photographer request to be paid for use of an image or maybe it's the first time they've ever heard of it and honestly the reason being is most other photographers are not very business savvy and they don't really know what their images are worth photographers aside most companies don't succeed by giving away their products for free so ask any seasoned experienced photographer to use one of their images they're going to require a photo license be paid for and as nye says mentions on social media are or tagging or giving us photo credit photography is our livelihood we just can't pay our bills with photo credit or exposure bucks but the photos are of my product or project the photos are of something i worked on or i designed doesn't that grant me some kind of automatic permission to use or distribute the images no most of the time what appears in the photo has absolutely no bearing on what companies or businesses can use an image or who has the right to distribute it if i take a photo of a kitchen and the sink has a delta faucet delta faucet would still need my permission to use the photo just because their product appears in my image does not give them the automatic right to maybe rip it from my website or social media and start using it no matter if they only wanted to use it on a single instagram post or place it in a massive full-page ad in dwell magazine they still need my permission as the copyright holder well i'm okay with paying a license but why is the photographer asking me a bunch of questions about what i plan on doing with the photo why can't they just write a license for i don't know no restrictions or unlimited use or just give me the copyright because the photographer wants to make sure that they write the appropriate permissions into the license and make sure that they don't charge you too little or too much this is very similar to how software licenses are sold if a small business of say 15 employees purchases accounting software they're going to pay a much different price than say an enterprise level company with multiple locations around the world same software but the scale and how the software is going to be used it's very different imagine if there was some ceo of some massive tech company and they get in their car one day and that person wants to listen to island in the sun by weezer and add it to their itunes library on their phone they're gonna end up paying roughly about a dollar for that song now that same ceo wants to use island in the sun in a national television ad campaign they are going to pay way more than just one dollar for a completely different kind of license keep in mind too if that ceo's company even pays thousands of dollars for that song in a commercial they still don't own the song island in the sun so if i see a photo and there's no watermark photo credit or mention of a photographer at all in relation to that image am i in the clear to use it no photo credits tagging or watermarks that really have nothing to do with if you're in the clear to use an image or not in most scenarios if you see a photo whether it's a one-person freelancer like myself or some enterprise level company somebody owns the copyright to that photo so let's sum this up one by default photographers own the copyright to the images that they create two even when hired directly by a client like a real estate agent interior designer homebuilder architect whatever a majority of the time the photographer still holds the copyright to the image they created for that client three copyright law grants them the ability to call the shots on who can use the photo how they can be used and for how long four if you happen to be one of those kind of clients in a completely separate company request to have even just one or all the photos that you paid a photographer for it's your responsibility to point them in the right direction back to the photographer you do not have the automatic right to just give away the photos or if you're a business that comes across an image that you'd like to use on your website or advertisement or even repost your social media accounts you need to obtain permission from the photographer i mean realistically are there any consequences for using a photo without the photographer's permission you bet there are if a photographer finds out we're using one of their images we'll we'll just take it down well at that point the toothpaste is already out of the tube the image or images have have already been used and many times a license needs to be paid when an image is used without the photographer's permission the technical term for that is copyright infringement and when businesses get called out on it many of them get defensive they come up with excuses try to pass the blame on somebody else or they just try to ignore the situation altogether and i strongly advise against each one of those reactions by the way now i won't go into all the consequences of copyright infringement a simple 30-second google search can answer those questions for you but long story short if a photographer has gone through the steps to make sure that their business and photos are protected to the fullest extent of copyright law it could cost the company a lot of money hundreds if not thousands and sometimes even tens of thousands of dollars again like i mentioned at the beginning of the video if you run into any kind of situation similar to what we went over just ask yourself do you have clear written permission from the original photographer to use or distribute an image or a set of images if not make sure to get it now i'm going to go a little bit off script here and add a bit of a little editorial piece here at the end as professional photographers we're often placed in awkward and tough situations simply because of taking a stand on our copyrights and most of the time the reason is is because some person or business who wants to use or distribute our photos made an incorrect assumption about the photos and even when we tactfully and politely speak up to correct the situation we're often met with aggressive responses and hostility sometimes even by our own clients us photographers are made out to be stubborn and obstinate when in fact all we're doing is trying to prevent or correct a situation where our images have been misused any level-headed entrepreneur or store owner does their best to prevent theft of their products that they sell or manufacture if i'm caught by a store manager for trying to sneak an ipad out the door under my jacket it'd be pretty ridiculous of me to lash out against the store manager because laws against shoplifting exist and yet photographers are met with responses like that constantly the biggest difference being instead of an item that you can grab off a store shelf our products are things that could be lifted with a simple screenshot or emailing an attachment or right-clicking save as in my personal opinion i think many people make assumptions about using images because they're just so easy to grab but just because i leave my car unlocked and the keys are on the dashboard it doesn't mean someone else is legally in the clear to just steal it yeah it was a lot easier than smashing a window and hot wiring the ignition but just because it was easier doesn't make it any less illegal so before you go thinking the photographer you're dealing with is some inflexible greedy stubborn jerk just remember we're simply professionals running a business trying to make a living and prevent the misuse or theft of the images that we produce that's all