But the real problem is oversupply. There simply are too many people able to produce photos good enough to meet the (lax) standards needed for many kinds of commercial use.

So it's clear that, for the good of the profession, some professional photographers must euthanize themselves in order to preserve the livelihood of the rest.

Any volunteers? Welcome to the "lifeboat dilemma"...

Most "professional" photographers these days have side or full time jobs to support their photography so having their work published IS their reward rather than making money with their photography. The more we give away our work, the less value our work becomes.

Camera makers are not dropping their prizes because there are a lot of cameras on the market, are they? If all of us stand up for our work, people will pay for it. If not, we might as well become hobbyists and find another job.

What aleways amazes me is the number of pro photographers (loosest sense in some cases) who refuse to have anything to do with licencing. "Nah it's too much hassle" one said to me, "I just like to charge one fee and that's it".

These guys and girls, and there seem to be more of them around now than a few years back, haven't got the first clue about how to leverage their copyright for profit. That copyright was hard fought for. It['s there to be used. Pricing on file size or the time it took to shoot the job is totally nuts! No wonder they have to work all week and shoot weddings at the weekend!

Employees work based on time. Professional creatives don't. Why?

http://www.thephotographybiz.com/photography-business/dont-charge-out-your-photography-on-time/

PP

The fantasy: A content server downloads 21K bytes to a browser; the user clicks the ad banner; the ad server registers the click and credits X cents to the content provider's account.

Your 7K photo accounted for 1/3 of that 21K bytestream; shouldn't you be entitled to 1/3 of the net revenue?

The reality: It's still people doing the clicking. Did the user click the ad BECAUSE of your image, or IN SPITE of it?

It would be fascinating to know, and maybe somewhere in the depths of Google Labs there's a tracker showing that pages with pictures of kitties get 0.7% more clickthrough than pages with pictures of doggies.

But in the real world of specific images, we CAN'T know, so we're faced with trying to negotiate for a slice of revenue without being able to know how much (if any) we contributed to that revenue.

I have seen many people use google to find images for their websites and businesses without getting the proper permission from the rightful owner. Sometimes the owner's name/copyright date is simply cropped off from the original image (if it is along the edgew of the photo) or the creator didn't put it on to begin with.

With all of this in mind, I have decided to put either my name or my website's name clearly across each photo from now on. It's not the most eye-friendly way to present my work but I think it helps prevent thieves.

I'm a newcomer to this business of photography and have been frustrated by the whole process of licensing images but especially for use on the web. I've had potential "stock clients" be shocked that I'm not willing to simply "give them permission" to use images on their websites and also found my pictures being used in a number of places without any requests at all - essentially stolen.

So I've thought that there's something that's not working with web licensing and that there has to be a technology out there to make it work well for all parties. From both sides of the equation, it makes no sense to me to try to "sell" web usage based on image size and display duration - let alone track that the licensee is only using an image at a 1/4 screen size and only for 3 months when it seems that anything that hits the web becomes essentially permanent! Seems that it would be a win-win for both photographer and licensee to get away from the "fixed fee, pay in advance, size and duration model."

So, is anyone anywhere close to offering something like pay-per-click or web traffic tracking for images? This seems like a no brainer, "natural" way to license images on the web but I don't have any idea of how to "drive that revolution" on my own and would certainly support any company or organization that was working on it.

Thanks for bringing up the new ideas!

"First came Google, when it won the case to publish images in its search results without paying anything. Then came National Geographic and others, republishing entire issues on CD-ROM without paying additional fees."

So, you are saying that Google showing thumbnails in search results is bad? That is what it looks like to me. Those search results are what has allowed me to earn a little bit of money so far. As far as I am concerned, as a photographer, I get as much, if not more back from google as I "give" them, considering they are TINY thumbnails that link back to my actual content. One of my hats is that of Search Engine Optimizer... and I really do not get your argument. It seems that Google does GOOD, getting eyes on your work, that otherwise would not have seen it. If this is what you are talking about, I am about 90% sure that you could hide your work from Google, if you used the robots.txt or other methods that block bots from indexing your site.

The other one, there, is the fact that National Geographic sells the magazines on CD. If I am negotiating selling a picture to a magazine, I have been under the assumption that they use it for that issue of the magazine. If a writer's work is reproduced on their website, or on a CD are they compensated for each iteration? It seems to me, that if you license a picture to be used in an article, doesn't the person that licensed it decide WHERE to publish the article, whether it is print, Web, or CD/electronic?

Please realize, I am not trying to be adversarial, I am really trying to understand all of this. I was just offered to have a picture added to a cookbook, and I will be getting some paperwork to sign, and I want to help get understanding what I should be doing with my photos, and how I should be protecting them. Thank you for the article, and thank you for any help.

This post has actually set some kind of record for us -- with 37 re-tweets at last count.

"as sayd in this example letter last year .....

I'm writing to urge you to oppose the U.S. Orphan Works Bills, H.R. 5889 and S. 2913, introduced into the House and Senate on April 24, 2008. These bills would amend the U.S. Copyright Law by adding “§ 514. Limitation on remedies in cases involving orphan works.” (Chapter 5 of Title 17, United States Code.)

This new law establishes yet another new defense to copyright infringement—orphan works. This new limitation on remedies will be imposed on any copyrighted work regardless of the national origin of the author of the work concerned.

What is an “orphan work”? It is any copyrighted work whose author cannot be found after a “reasonably diligent search”—conducted by the infringer. The infringer decides when he has met this imprecise test.

The infringer would be free to ignore the rights of the author and use the work for any purpose, including commercial usage. The infringed work could be used in any motion picture—including X-rated—any commercial advertisement, including political advertising, tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceutical advertising.

The new law also allows the original work to be manipulated beyond recognition in “mashups”, “remixes” or other digital manipulations and allows the infringer to claim copyright in the derivative work without the consent of the owner of the infringed work.

It seems to me that the ones who are so keen on eroding the rights of creatives are those who have never created a damn thing in their lives! They just like to get rich off the creative efforts of others. We may not all have the bluntness of a Harlan Ellison but we can certainly be as strong-willed.

I have been telling customers since forever that they need to care about licencing, most of them have never heard of that and next are utterly shocked at what prices often are imagined by the fotographer. The one thing I hate about all of these arguments is simple [and yes I am simplifying]: Why is it always you want to participate on the success of something and say this is only based on what you produced but never on the failures (because that is always the publishers fault)?

Licencing rights are a basis for negotiation and not a right per se as in I have to make you rich and famous but "you have something I want and in exchange I could have something you want let's talk".

I have had enough of people licencing content in any kind applying deals from the last millenium (jup) which f.e. where based on the fact that back then even a modest publication and distribution was unheard of, even unthinkable. Worldwide even more so.

The internet is by definition world wide and not limited in time. As you correctly said, this needs to be treated differently because it is different. At the same time you cannot expect the same compensation build on old measurements in a different universe. Note that I am not saying that you should receive less or anything, but I say it needs to be treated differently.

Concentrate on undertanding this new system called the internet (which btw is oh so old now it is not cute since 5 years ago) and start work like a professional. Get to know how to make yourself a name in this system and learn to understand to think business.

If you in this for business, start treating it as such (as you said in Nr. 9). Start using stock photo sites for your lesser value photos which are still good enough to be stock photo material and earn money through this. Use an alias if you must. Understand how image distribution happens like sites of Stumbleupon and co because people do not know about licencing and do not care. Never have. You will not change that. You can play by your rules or understand how the other side tick and make this your advantage (and thus money out of this).

You mentioned famous fotographers but let's face it, that is an unfair comparison. Because most fotos used are not from famous fotographers and not in there because one wants art but just some image. Something non text. In such an enviroment (which also exists in print) you don't book somebody famous but somebody to do the job.

Because most photographers are still set in stone in thinking "this is my art and I want to be treated as an artist". Which is fine. But there is a reason why most artists do not earn money and some do.