studio36uk wrote:
So lets see if I have this right...

Some of you [but not all, of course] are willing to, and from the looks of it even eager to:
1) give your work away without payment;
2) but even without payment also to give it away without credit;
3) allow that publisher to commercialize it, indeed use it for commercial purposes, for their own profit, without you getting anything out of the deal at all;
4) allow that publisher to carry the licensed work as their own intellectual property asset adding to their net worth - because it's not the actual work itself that has that value the value is in the license you gave them; and
5) for that publisher to even put their own name on your work;

- AND - you are not even being published in their actual magazine?

What a truly sad bunch of f**kers you are!

Studio36

God bless you bull's eye man!
let's wake up and smell the roses
they don't even want to pay us as much as a plumber to do their stinking work!
this is too depressing

studio36uk wrote:

You seem to be thinking, referring to low res images, in terms of paper publications. Maxim is thinking in new media terms. For the web whatever you submit will have to be web practical, say 400 x 600 pixels minimum... and if it is web practical when submitted then they can make use of it anywhere, and for anything, that will appear on the web. You don't need multi-thousand pixels and gigabyte file sizes for that.

There are various systems for determining the commercial value of images for web use. Some images, even at 400 x 600 pixels, licensed for long term advertising use on the Internet will command many hundreds, even thousands, of dollars in licensing fees.

Maxim also wants to be able to license to 3rd parties. Do you suppose that they do that on the same terms as they want you to license to them? Not bloody likely!

You can bet the images have commercial value. And you can also bet that value, at least in Maxim's office, is not merely alleged.

I've never worked for them; I don't live in their knickers; I don't have insider information; but I can tell you this, WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY, they are making, or planning to, more money from your images than the "ZERO" you will be getting from them.

Studio36

If the girl makes the finalists they want the high res copies...

Lasting Blueprint wrote:
Im shooting one with a model this week. It doesn't bother me that I have to give away rights. More so in it for exposure and being able to say that I got in Maxim ya know?

Great for the ego, not so much for the grocery bill..
Why don't people want to make a living at this any more?????

Lasting Blueprint wrote:
Im shooting one with a model this week. It doesn't bother me that I have to give away rights. More so in it for exposure and being able to say that I got in Maxim ya know?

Great for the ego, not so much for the grocery bill..
Why don't people want to make a living at this any more?????

studio36uk wrote:
So lets see if I have this right...

Some of you [but not all, of course] are willing to, and from the looks of it even eager to:
1) give your work away without payment;
2) but even without payment also to give it away without credit;
3) allow that publisher to commercialize it, indeed use it for commercial purposes, for their own profit, without you getting anything out of the deal at all;
4) allow that publisher to carry the licensed work as their own intellectual property asset adding to their net worth - because it's not the actual work itself that has that value the value is in the license you gave them; and
5) for that publisher to even put their own name on your work;

- AND - you are not even being published in their actual magazine?

What a truly sad bunch of f**kers you are!

Studio36

WORD!!!!!


Such BAD judgement!

OpenMinds wrote:

Great for the ego, not so much for the grocery bill..
Why don't people want to make a living at this any more?????

Because they are trying to get laid, is my guess. I wish there were less "photography enthusiasts" giving their work away for free. I would imagine it makes it quite hard to demand money for jobs, when Joe Shmo is doing it for free.

studio36uk wrote:

Takes? Takes? They can't legally "take" fuck all.

Studio36

studio36uk wrote:
Takes? Takes? They can't legally "take" fuck all.

Studio36

Aaron D Lewis wrote:
Let me rephrase. You have to agree to give them in order to submit.

ACPhotography wrote:
If the girl makes the finalists they want the high res copies...

Am I missing something here? Has the word "no" been abolished from the English language?

Say "no" and you cut them off at the knees. Simples.

Studio36

Stacy Leigh wrote:

Because they are trying to get laid, is my guess. I wish there were less "photography enthusiasts" giving their work away for free. I would imagine it makes it quite hard to demand money for jobs, when Joe Shmo is doing it for free.

lol I don't have issues with getting laid.

But...like I said, I see most of your point of view. Can't change your minds with my point of view, but that is ok with me.

Robert Lynch wrote:
* This is not a rhetorical question.  Would someone please provide real world, hard numbers so we all are on the same page about the alleged commercial value of the images?

studio36uk wrote:
You seem to be thinking, referring to low res images, in terms of paper publications. Maxim is thinking in new media terms. For the web whatever you submit will have to be web practical, say 400 x 600 pixels minimum... and if it is web practical when submitted then they can make use of it anywhere, and for anything, that will appear on the web. You don't need multi-thousand pixels and gigabyte file sizes for that.

No, I am not thinking only in terms of just paper publications.  I am thinking in terms of current product offerings in new media.  (I hate that term.)  FemJoy gives away 1500x1000 images for free as samples.  Digital Desire gives away 3000x2000 images for free as samples.  They sell up to 39 MP images.  In a world like that, a 600x400 image simply isn't as valuable, though I am not saying that an image is useless at that size.

studio36uk wrote:
There are various systems for determining the commercial value of images for web use. Some images, even at 400 x 600 pixels, licensed for long term advertising use on the Internet will command many hundreds, even thousands, of dollars in licensing fees.

I'm sure that some images might be worth that, but not many and even fewer of those, if any, are of scantily clad, random pretty girls.  Content is critical for determining the value of an image.  Let's look at this from the retail side.  Here is an example of the sort of image that will be submitted countless times for the HTH contest:



I can purchase that photo, rights free to use however as I please, in "Web Resolution" size, for the princely sum of $15.  Of course, the photographer will get even less than that.

studio36uk wrote:
Maxim also wants to be able to license to 3rd parties. Do you suppose that they do that on the same terms as they want you to license to them? Not bloody likely!

You can bet the images have commercial value. And you can also bet that value, at least in Maxim's office, is not merely alleged.

I've never worked for them; I don't live in their knickers; I don't have insider information; but I can tell you this, WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY, they are making, or planning to, more money from your images than the "ZERO" you will be getting from them.

Studio36

Of course.  This is where that other key number comes in.  3.  If I contacted a site like TeaseUm.com and offered to sell them a set of three images of a girl in a bikini, the best response that I could hope for, if they responded at all, would be polite laughter.  They show 32 images in their sets and I am quite sure that they insist on much more than that in the submission.  Maxim can monetize your three images because they are acting as an aggregator.  They can package your 3 images and my 3 images and everyone else's 3 images and and sell them in bulk to some second tier site that just needs a bunch of random low res pretty girl pictures to fill an ad based site or a site with modest subscription fees.  By themselves, each group of 3 submitted images have virtually no commercial value.  The odds of finding anyone to pay more than peanuts for them, other than the person in them, is virtually nil.

If a photographer refuses to get involved in something like this purely as a matter of principle, then I can't argue with that.  As principles go, this is not unreasonable.  However, if a photographer refuses because they think that they are being taken advantage of for being expected to leave money on the table, then they are wrong, because there is no money on the table for them, with one exception.  That money will come from the pretty girl who pays for the photo session.  If you turn that down, you better have a higher paying opportunity for that time or the only person you are hurting is yourself.

Robert Lynch wrote:
Maxim can monetize your three images because they are acting as an aggregator.

Ah. so that makes it OK then?

Maxim, among other things, wants a license to sell the images on CD. So they put 100 images from this year's entries on that CD, winners, losers and even maybe the no-hopers, and sell it for 10 bucks. That's 10 cents an image they are turning over...

...but wait, on a world wide basis they sell maybe 100,000+ copies of that CD.

You do the math.

Studio36

Stacy Leigh wrote:
Because they are trying to get laid, is my guess. I wish there were less "photography enthusiasts" giving their work away for free. I would imagine it makes it quite hard to demand money for jobs, when Joe Shmo is doing it for free.

I can get laid for just a few pictures?  Damn, I'm doing this wrong.  Normally I have to pay for dinner, a Broadway show and a weekend at Ink48.

threadjack

I love your shot of VV as a doll wrangler, but she's got a nipple showing, so you should probably classify it as M.

/threadjack

studio36uk wrote:

Ah. so that makes it OK then?

Maxim, among other things, wants a license to sell the images on CD. So they put 100 images from this year's entries on that CD, winners, losers and even maybe the no-hopers, and sell it for 10 bucks. That's 10 cents an image they are turning over...

...but wait, on a world wide basis they sell maybe 100,000+ copies of that CD.

You do the math.

Studio36

I fully understand this.  I thought that I had made that clear.  Unless you can figure out a way to make money yourself from just three low resolution images, they are worthless to you.  You will never, ever make any money from them unless there is a small miracle.  So, you can decide as a matter of principle to turn down a paying client because of this and make $0, or you can accept the fact that not every image that you or I or anyone else will create is a precious little snowflake that must be protected at all costs and get on with making the money that is actually available in the real world.

I should probably repeat the fact that all of my arguments are based on getting paid.  I did this once several years ago as a personal favor for someone I have known for a long time, but other than that, I expect someone to pay me for my time for something like this.  I just don't expect that money to come from Maxim and I say that with my eyes wide open with a full understanding of the realities for all the parties involved.

studio36uk wrote:
You seem to be thinking, referring to low res images, in terms of paper publications. Maxim is thinking in new media terms. For the web whatever you submit will have to be web practical, say 400 x 600 pixels minimum... and if it is web practical when submitted then they can make use of it anywhere, and for anything, that will appear on the web. You don't need multi-thousand pixels and gigabyte file sizes for that.

There are various systems for determining the commercial value of images for web use. Some images, even at 400 x 600 pixels, licensed for long term advertising use on the Internet will command many hundreds, even thousands, of dollars in licensing fees.

Maxim also wants to be able to license to 3rd parties. Do you suppose that they do that on the same terms as they want you to license to them? Not bloody likely!

You can bet the images have commercial value. And you can also bet that value, at least in Maxim's office, is not merely alleged.

I've never worked for them; I don't live in their knickers; I don't have insider information; but I can tell you this, WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY, they are making, or planning to, more money from your images than the "ZERO" you will be getting from them.

Studio36

If your images aren't submitted/used, you get "ZERO".  If your images are submitted/used, you get "ZERO".

So, what's the difference?

1. Hopefully you enjoyed capturing the images; I for one am looking for models to shoot.
2. Whether on a TF basis, or for some fee you charged the model, you have been compensated for your effort.  This argument is used *all the time* in the forums, and it is valid.
3.  *If* the images get used, you can draw whatever satisfaction suits you, as a number of other posts have mentioned. 
4. I tend to agree with the positive word-of-mouth from your winning model being a distinct benefit, along with a preferred role shooting this up-

double_dog wrote:
Your work has no value, ever, until someone wants to pay for it.

On the contrary, if your work does have value and a market... then market it and get paid for it. If you are reduced to giving it away then that says more about your photography than any of you apparently are willing to admit.

Hell, it seems like some of you would even be willing to pay, in time, effort, as well as direct and indirect costs, to have it taken off your hands. ROTFLMAO

If I take a picture of a brick wall I'll either sell it to some one or keep it on file, forever if necessary, before I would give it away with a large handful of right to go with it. Whoever wants it under those circumstances IS your market. If someone wants your work then it has value to THEM, and if they want it bad enough they will pay for it.

Studio36

studio36uk wrote:
Considering the business I am now in - IP rights management [including licensing] - I am always, always, skeptical, and highly suspicious, about some organization or publisher demanding a suite of rights that are far in excess of their underlying need. In Maxim's case, and any other kind of competition based on photographs, that underlying need is to be able to administer their competition.

Lately even the likes of National Geographic has been trying that shit, but not without it being noticed. The BBC tried it and it was noticed there as well. Hell, in early iterations of the MM T&Cs during the most recent re-write, about a year and a half ago, even this site tried it. Facebook has tried it.

In the publishing world it is well known that Conde Nast(y) are past masters in the rights grabbing business. Even the New York Times has tried it.

So it's not only the skin rags doing it.

Studio36

I understand your perspective on this.  I have seen some fairly egregious examples of this, including attempts to get a full transfer of copyright, not just an unlimited license.  However, these things happen on a sliding scale.and should be evaluated on a case by case basis.  In case like this, the images only have value to the client if the can be used in the contest.  In that context, a photographer needs to decide how much the job is worth to them.

studio36uk wrote:

On the contrary, if your work does have value and a market... then market it and get paid for it. If you are reduced to giving it away then that says more about your photography than any of you apparently are willing to admit.

Hell, it seems like some of you would even be willing to pay, in time, effort, as well as direct and indirect costs, to have it taken off your hands. ROTFLMAO

If I take a picture of a brick wall I'll either sell it to some one or keep it on file, forever if necessary, before I would give it away with a large handful of right to go with it. Whoever wants it under those circumstances IS your market.

Studio36

For the sake of discussion and given the context of the sample image in my post above, exactly how much do you think that Maxim should pay to license 3 600x400 unremarkable images of a random, scantily clad pretty girl for their intended purposes?

Brom78 wrote:
^^^^^^^^^^^^

Its those small images that end up with a telephone number under them in the back of wank mags.

I wonder what the model will think then when she's advertising for someone to wank over her soapy tits or someone shops a cock on her for a transsexual pleasure line?

And if Maxim paid for them, that somehow wouldn't happen anyway?  If Maxim didn't insist on such a broad license, the people who run those sites wouldn't just take the images off of Maxim's site and use them that way anyway?  You're talking about people who are not known for always respecting IP rights.

studio36uk wrote:

Hometown Hotties contest? No money; no credit; and a license to them that includes them using the images for everything under the sun including sub-licensing to 3rd partes and use in 3rd party advertising.

No use in a photographer doing it for "the exposure" cause you ain't gettin' any.

The Hometown Hotties contest is the mother of all rights grabs.

Studio36

This has spawned countless model "contests" that do nothing more than drive people to websites. Winners are not chosen by popular vote and the models don't really win anything or get paid. The photographers get even less.

Brom78 wrote:
These rights grabs are frankly disgusting and there should be some sort of legislation to stop them.  They rely on the uninformed, the innocent as well as the downright desperate to gain a stock that would have cost them thousands upon thousands to build themselves

Frankly its robbery

At least as to claims that the competition organizers acquire the copyright - - -

There is, in fact, considering how the comps are typically run, for the most part, just by publishing or posting T&C's which you are expected to abide, and not exchanging any other paperwork: s:90 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

In the US the same would be true in reference to U.S. Copyright Law s:204

Studio36

The Bill of Rights Standards for Photography Competitions

Competitions which meet all the standards set out in the Bill of Rights do NOT do any of the following -

    * claim copyright

    * seek waiving of moral rights

    * fail to give a credit for all free usage.

    * add, alter, or remove metadata from digital images

    * seek usage rights other than for solely and exclusively promoting the contest.

    * seek free usage rights in excess of 5 years

    * use the images commercially without the photographers agreement, and such commercial usage is to be rights managed and limited to 5 years.

    * make it a condition of winning that an entrant must sign a commercial usage agreement.

    * fail to publish all documents on the competition website that an entrant may have to sign

    * fail to name the judges for this or last year's competition

    * fail to explicitly state all the organisations who will acquire rights to the images

    * set a closing date more than 18 months after the contest launch date

    * fail to make clear statements of rights claimed and how images are [to be] used.

source: http://www.pro-imaging.org/component/op … /Itemid,1/

Brom78 wrote:
^^^^^^^^^^^^

Its those small images that end up with a telephone number under them in the back of wank mags.

I wonder what the model will think then when she's advertising for someone to wank over her soapy tits or someone shops a cock on her for a transsexual pleasure line?

Oh, and phone boxes around London. Don't forget the phone boxes.   LOL



   

But by far one of the best. No one is safe



Studio36

studio36uk wrote:

Oh, and phone boxes around London. Don't forget the phone boxes.   LOL



   

But by far one of the best. No one is safe



Studio36

Hey, that's my phone number.

Hey, that's my wife!

ACPhotography wrote:
So.... I just got 2 girls outside of MM contact me to shoot for Hometown Hotties, paid of course... They both want fully retouched images and my dilemma is do I take their money and sign the paperwork? Trying to think of a fair price for the 3-5 images they need....What I want to bill for is a full copyright transfer but I don't think they have that much, lol.

That should be simple.  What is the lost potential income from those images in the real world due to licensing them to Maxim?   I'm still waiting for someone to answer that.

Robert Lynch wrote:

That should be simple.  What is the lost potential income from those images in the real world due to licensing them to Maxim?   I'm still waiting for someone to answer that.

That's what I'm wondering.... It comes down more to the fact that you're giving Maxim the ability to resell your images. These girls don't have what I'd honestly charge, normally with the exception of the shoot contract I'd take no release for my own usage or ability to sell the images. It might be a combination of money plus a full commercial release if I do so. It's a shot in the dark that I could make further money from them, but the ability is there.

ACPhotography wrote:
So.... I just got 2 girls outside of MM contact me to shoot for Hometown Hotties, paid of course... They both want fully retouched images and my dilemma is do I take their money and sign the paperwork? Trying to think of a fair price for the 3-5 images they need.... What I want to bill for is a full copyright transfer but I don't think they have that much, lol.

From what I've been told in the forums, the fair price for copyright transfer is about $5,000 per image.  For what you describe, I'd probably want $300 or so; depending on whether we also shot things that I could / wanted to use.

ACPhotography wrote:
That's what I'm wondering.... It comes down more to the fact that you're giving Maxim the ability to resell your images. These girls don't have what I'd honestly charge, normally with the exception of the shoot contract I'd take no release for my own usage or ability to sell the images. It might be a combination of money plus a full commercial release if I do so. It's a shot in the dark that I could make further money from them, but the ability is there.

Pretty sure your commercial release won't do you any good if you transfer all rights to the model / Maxim.

Stacy Leigh wrote:
I would imagine it makes it quite hard to demand money for jobs, when Joe Shmo is doing it for free.

This is exactly why you have to join a very restrictive union to be an actor or host a radio show. To protect against those who give their time away for free.

Angela Stein wrote:
Photographers, what do you think about shooting a model for the contest?

If I shot that genre, I would only do it if I was paid for the rights.  I have a deep hatred of publications wanting image rights and not paying for them. I refuse to participate in that nonsense.  I think the models who are lining up to submit are desperate. Seriously, this is nothing to brag about even if you're accepted. If anything, it's embarrassing. I think the photographers who would sign everything over without getting paid for it are stupid.

MLR Photo Glamour wrote:
From what I've been told in the forums, the fair price for copyright transfer is about $5,000 per image.  For what you describe, I'd probably want $300 or so; depending on whether we also shot things that I could / wanted to use.

1 - That's funny.  To think that the copyright to any random image is automatically worth $5,000 or any other arbitrary number picked out of thin air is, quite frankly, ridiculous.  The value of an image is dependent on it's content and potential usage.

2 - If people are going to discuss this reasonably, they need to at least get the basic facts down right.  I was hoping people would get it right by this point in the thread.  Maxim does NOT require a transfer of copyright for the images that are entered into the contest.  They require a perpetual, unlimited, NON-EXCLUSIVE license.  You can still use the images as you see fit.

ACPhotography wrote:
It's a shot in the dark that I could make further money from them, but the ability is there.

Is that statement based on a realistic, specific expectation or just wishful thinking, and how much money could that possibly be?  And given that you aren't actually giving up your rights to use your image*, which I had thought everyone would have gotten by now, what exactly will be your lost income by providing a non-exclusive license to MAXIM?

* Doesn't anybody take the time to read the relevant documents?

Robert Lynch wrote:
* This is not a rhetorical question.  Would someone please provide real world, hard numbers so we all are on the same page about the alleged commercial value of the images?

+1

To his credit, he is used to shooting fruit.




Andrew Thomas Evans
www.andrewthomasevans.com

MLR Photo Glamour wrote:

Pretty sure your commercial release won't do you any good if you transfer all rights to the model / Maxim.

For a total of 5 photos in whatever we shoot...

Robert Lynch wrote:

Is that statement based on a realistic, specific expectation or just wishful thinking, and how much money could that possibly be?  And given that you aren't actually giving up your rights to use your image*, which I had thought everyone would have gotten by now, what exactly will be your lost income by providing a non-exclusive license to MAXIM?

* Doesn't anybody take the time to read the relevant documents?

Ok, so we're sharing the rights to our work with Maxim...

If the girl actually won than a commercial release could be beneficial, sell off my own copies of the images. Then again I live in NY, a limited number of art prints can be run off and sold and the subject in the photos can't say shit, release or not... (Caselaw...)

Personality Imaging wrote:
I wouldn't do it for free because there is absolutely nothing in getting published in Maxim for the photographer.  Unless the model shoots other really good stuff that you maintain full rights to, I wouldn't do it except for $$$.

I got 2 TF requests for it and told them both they were out of their minds...

Now, the ones offering me money, we all know money talks....

Of course the TF ones came from MM and the paid ones from the outside world!

ACPhotography wrote:
I got 2 TF requests for it and told them both they were out of their minds...

Now, the ones offering me money, we all know money talks....

Of course the TF ones came from MM and the paid ones from the outside world!

Depends what the total "TF" package was.  As I thnk I said at the beginning of the thread; if it was a model I would expect to have to pay otherwise, it might well be worthwhile to allow that use of a few shots.