studio36uk wrote:
More idiots - see at the end - giving it away.
Studio36
Mortonovich wrote:
Studio, semi related question...
If Joe Schmoe were to get a spectacular newsworthy photo, are there agencies
that will feed it to the news sources, collect the revenue, monitor its use, etc?
Would Joe Schmoe typically be contacted by said agency when the story
broke, offering their services, etc?
First, yes, there are.
Second, in some cases you may have to seek them out just so they know that you do have something and what it is that you have; in other cases they will already know and will come to you.
Either way it's up to you to know, or at least have an idea of, the real value of what is on offer. They will often try to negotiate the rights right out from under your feet either on an exclusivity basis [which may or may not be a good deal, but will prevent you from licensing rights, or even using the images yourself, for a period of time, possibly a long time] -or- they might try to buy out your copyright [which is likely never a good deal with a breaking news image], but you can always say no. It is still a negotiation at that point.
ACTUAL CASE STUDY: There was a guy in the UK, just some "Joe Schmoe" member of the public, right after the 7/7/2005 London Underground bombings that had some video of a stand-off with some of the terror suspects at a block of flats in London. He had an excellent vantage point from another building that even the news photographers couldn't match in their coverage. He wound up selling copyright and all to some news image outfit for what he thought was a super price; until, that is, he realised that they syndicated it all over the world and made, for themselves because they now owned the copyright, AT LEAST 100 TIMES what they paid him for it. Frankly, he got sucker punched in that deal. In the end, to his dismay, he discovered the real market value of what he had. IF he had held on to the copyright he could have negotiated a license with the syndicator for "X" percentage [20; 30; possibly even 40%] of anything they sub-licensed it for to media outlet end users.
Studio36
