How Should You Fight a Bad Contract?

How Should You Fight a Bad Contract?

This past Sunday, the Photo Brigade’s Robert Caplin invited me to moderate a superstar panel composed of legendary photojournalist David Burnett, former Sports Illustrated staff photographer Al Tielemans, music and sports photographer David Bergman, sports and editorial photographer Rob Tringali, and corporate and editorial photographer Robert Seale to discuss the business of editorial photography.

Because it was a long panel, I’ve broken down the responses by questions below so you can jump to the relevant parts quickly.

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Allen Murabayashi is the co-founder of PhotoShelter.

There are 5 comments for this article
  1. Doug at 11:00 am

    I hate that “people are uncomfortable talking about what they made last year” – why? I’ve never kept these numbers private and it’s something I don’t quite understand. We’d all benefit from this info being public.

  2. Peter at 5:21 pm

    The digital revolution, World Wide Web, social media and superior cameras and smartphones have shrunk the world. Meanwhile corporations wrestle away copyright benefits and wages. Meanwhile there are millions willing to literally work for free for the privilege of having a few dollars and their name on a photo. One of the panelists used the term “it’s becoming a nickel and dime industry.)

    What if we had a licenseing requirement for photographers, like the way a dentist is licensed by the State? And the photographers charge R&C (reasonable and customary fees). Plumbers and other tradesmen have licenseing with the state? This could guarentee a fair base wage. Of course the most creative photographers could demand higher fees.

    Great panel Allen. Thank you

    Peter

    • Thomas Pickard at 4:55 am

      The reasons corporations ‘wrestle away copyright benefits and wages” is because too many photographer’s didn’t take an individual stand when they could of with each and every client interaction.

      I had an editor from Hemisphere’s Magazine contact me years ago for a job. After reading the contract and returning it with the changes I required to make it a fair contract, I received an email, which basically said “our lawyers have advised us that you either accept the contract as is, or we (the editor) should find another photographer.

      So find another photographer, they did.

  3. Pingback: Copyright and Photographer Rights. |

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