[thelist] photo copyrights
Laurel S. Nevans
laurel at artistcrafts.com
Mon Jul 20 19:25:23 CDT 2009
I am a part time craft-artist, and as such, had my picture appear
on the front of the local paper. My sister is a former Newspaper
Reporter. I asked her about reprinting my cover on my website,
in marketing materials, etc. She told me that I had a certain
right to "fair use" of my image in marketing materials. However,
she said that I should include the WHOLE fromt page in any scan,
and be sure to include the newspaper's masthead and any photo
credit/caption in the scan. In terms of advising me on web
design customers, who don't seem to understand that they just
cant "save as" that picture of them on that website and use it on
their own, she advised me that I needed to get permission from
the newspaper to reprint any copy, and permission from both the
publisher and the photographer to reproduce any photo. Depending
on the photographer's contract with the paper, either the
photographer or the publication may own the photo copyright.
(Did they employ the photographer, as in he was on staff, on
which case the paper generally owns the photo. Or did they buy
single photos from a freelancer, in which case it's doubtful the
paper owns the copyright.)
I'm sure most advertisers fair use policies run along the lines
of the newspapers: you must reproduce the ad in its entirety,
rather than just clip the image. I'd probably send a screen shot
of the ad's intended use with a cover letter to their corporate
offices, just for the CYA factor. If I was handling a client of
any "note", I'd probably also see what someplace like Getty
Images has and what they'd charge for use. The advantage to
purchaseing images from places like that is that they handle all
of that legal use stuff for you.
Usual disclosures. IANAL. YMMV.
Laurel Nevans
Independent Computer Guru
Sunny FL, USA
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