Submitting shots to magazines- debate

I have no problem giving free use of an image to someone or something you believe in or wish to help with, I do not think you should have to give away the right of use in perpetuity to a entity that, let's be honest, is using your work to sell magazines and make a profit. Unfortunately when you publish anything that ends up on a website you are really giving it to the world to use, it's pretty much impossible to stop people using it with or without relevent credit. Don't quote me on the wording but as far as I know any image you upload to Face Book you are by implication giving them any and all rights to do whatever they so wish with the material, to me this is just a company taking advantage of people wanting to share their images with others. Maybe it's time for people stand up for themselves and be alot more discerning about who they let use their property and insist that the effort, resources, and talent that go into it be recognised and ownership credited. There are not too many of these magazines that give you or anyone else much for free.

:gramps: My two cents worth for what it's worth

As long as you put it on a website and include copyright verbage, as far as I know, that's pretty much done and dusted. Of course, it doesn;t prevent people ripping off you image. But I believe if they do, you then have the right to pursue them for damages.

Personally, I publish my images to my own website so I have full control over the copyright verbage I use. There may be thrid-party websitesites who would allo folks to do the same - I don't know.

For the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Picassa etc ad nauseum, if you were publishing images on those sites, the only advice I would give is to read the T&C's.

For my own site, I write my own T&C's

Hey,
Sky and telescope are generous compared to other mags when it comes to images.
As for sky@night magazine, I cant see them persuing you if you used an image you submitted elsewhere, I'd like to see them try. :devil: its hardly worth their time.

I use flickr for images, saves me the hassle or maintaining a website, and I use it for linking images in facebook and here, I wouldnt upload any images these days directly into the backhole that is facebook.

dmcdona wrote: I'd be interested to hear Anthony's views. As an accomplished and much published imager, I know he has been through this before and made comments here on this site. Calling Greece!

One final thing - I'm prettry sure there are websites out there who gladly "publish" images but do not ask you to relinquish rights - APOD springs to mind.

Cheers
Dave

Gents,

I am fortunate to have had my work appear in over 90 magazines and also over 90 books and where I have acquired a LOT of experience in this regard.

The issue with S@N is something which is best described as being off the bell curve and for all the wrong reasons. More specifically, all of the reasons mentioned above are valid, for they want and expect total future access to your submitted images and with them being in full control. You also receive no honorarium when your work is indeed used (first time or otherwise) and certainly no advance notice that it will be appearing is such and such an issue. To this end, I stopped submitting material to S@N MANY MANY MANY moons ago! That said, the next issue will feature me and one of my images in a special article they will feature (Best of the Best) and where I was asked to participate.

In relation to Astronomy Now, they were precisely the opposite to S@N. At one time I was informed to kindly not submit material since it was "too professional" and simply had work appear whenever a request came from them and/or if they used some of my work for magazine articles. However, last year I had two images published and they never sent me the complementary 10 GBP check for either image and the associated sample issue (I have had a multi-yr subsciption with them for some time). I sent then an email in December reminding them that two of my images appeared and no honorarium was received. I did not receive a reply and a couple of months thereafter I did not renew my subscription!

Sky&Telescope and Astronomy Magazine in the US are very professional. They will use your photos and will pay for the publication rights without any restrictive clauses or exclusions. If there are two magazines I will always deal with, it is these two on the basis of their behaviour involving my work.

In general, very few magazines pay for images used and only one will demand that it has not been submitted elsewhere (namely, S@N).

In relation to NASA APOD, each and every image used as an APOD is accompanied by a Copyright and Credit qualifier below the image. To this end, there is NO excuse for copyright violation. I nailed Popular Science last year for lifting a photo of mine off NASA APOD and using it in one of their online articles. To add insult to injury, they credited NASA as the source and copyright holder. Within 24 hours, I had the matter resolved very nicely in my favour including a $125 payment.

As for copyright, ALL material is copyrighted and irrespective if a copyright statement appears on the image itself or the webpage where the image is presented. Anyone wishing to use your work must (1) request permission to do so and (2) credit your work. Simply lifting your work and properly crediting it is NOT sufficient and still makes them liable for copyright violation. Just to give you an idea, I have a major US publisher on the run who has been using my work incessantly between 2005 and 2012 (41 copyright violations in total across various titles and editions thereof) who did credit the work properly at the back of each book title BUT never sought permission to use it. (chee-ching!)

In relation to damages, generally one is liable for both statutory and punitive damages with a slight exception being the US. For the latter (ie. US), one is liable for statutory damages only if work has its copyright violated and which means the guilty party is only liable for the amount which would have been paid anyway if advance permission had been sought. In other words, there is nothing to lose by the violator (if caught) since their greatest exposure is paying the amount which would have been applicable up-front anyways ... from this, one can extract that it is in their favour to violate copyright since one can get away without payment and only pay what would have been the case if and when caught. All of this changes, however, if work is registered with the US Copyright Office and were suddenly both statutory damages (as per the above) and punitive damages now come into play. Under this scenario, it is easy for a single violation to command many thousands of dollars.

Things elsewhere and Europe as an example are much more strict, for we have both statutory and punitive damages applicable. For example, Focus Magazine (Italy) used some of my work without permission both in print (their magazine) as well as online. Once I discovered this unauthorized use of my work, I looked after the matter with the help of a lawyer and this matter was once again settled nicely in my favour.

Always remember that your work is automatically protected for copyright and only you can allow others permission to use it. If they use it without your permission (with or without proper credit) constitutes copyright violation. It makes no difference if we are talking about a magazine (print or digital), a book publisher, online website (ex. magazine), blog etc.

Something I should mention is the term "ancillary use". When receiving an email requesting permission to use your work, you will often receive something of the form "we would like to use your photo in TITLE-SO-AND-SO, present and all future editions, all associated ancillary uses, national and international editions, multimedia and digital formats etc etc" .... do NOT make the mistake to agree to these terms since they are asking for a complete blank check as to when, where and how the photo is used. Only allow use for the publication of interest (ex. "Ryan's Astronomy for Dummies, 4th Edition, 2012, UK market, ISBN: 000-0-00000-0"). Once you have established a price for your photo (ex. $400), inform them that a 20% mark-up is applicable for international rights and another 20% mark-up for ancillary use (such as ebooks, sample online chapters, teacher's notes etc). Pricing is dependent on use (ex. cover or simply within the magazine/book), print size (ex. 1/4 page), circulation (ex. 75,000 copies of the book) and the aforementioned international circulation (+20%) and ancillary use (another +20%).

If I can assist with anything else, please let me know!

Anthony.

For my Irish buddies:

The 10 Rules Of US Copyright Infringement

www.jeremynicholl.com/blog/2011/06/13/th...yright-infringement/

Defining published and unpublished?

asmp.org/tutorials/published-or-unpublished.html

10 Big Myths about copyright explained .... MUST READ

www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

Top 10 Myths About Copyright

www.publishlawyer.com/top10.htm

Myths about Copyright

www.thecopyrightsite.org/myths/index.html

Top Ten Myths of Copyright, Plus One

www.pixiq.com/article/top-ten-myths-of-copyright-plus-one

Facebook ... a hornet's nest awaiting a massive lawsuit!

We all know how photos are used and abused on Facebook given the ease with which a user can circulate material. Since these violations are occurring on Facebook's servers, they (Facebook) are technically liable.

I have had people's accounts closed down my Facebook since they repeatedly violated copyright. Facebook makes very clear references to copyright violation and they will respond immediately when notified of a copyright violation. To this end, if you see your photo (or that of a friend) being used, especially and typically without even the courtesy of a "Source:" statement, do everyone a huge favour and contact Facebook if your photo is involved or notify your friend if the photo involved is theirs.

In relation to Facebook having free access to all of your work, I have two comments to make in this regard: (1) I researched the common belief that Facebook has access to all of your work since it is on their servers but they (Facebook) explicitly state that your work is indeed your work and noone else can use it (if you can locate something to the contrary in their User Agreement, by all means let me/us know) and (2) Facebook has used user preferences to market third-party ads (ex. Frank Ryan likes British Airways) and a lawsuit has been filed against Facebook by a FB user when her Facebook activity was used in this regard.

Anthony.