Reply #50: I'm a freelance photographer

[RagingInMiami]

And unless previously agreed, the photographer owns the rights to all his photos. Usually when shooting for a client other than a news service, the client pays the photographer a daily rate then extra for each photo they end up purchasing. Or even if the photographer agreed to give the client a certain amount of photos for a flat rate, the photographer still owns the rights to the photos and is allowed to resell them.

If a client hires a photographer under a "work for hire" agreement, that means the photographer is giving up all his rights to the photo, which is something professional photographers strongly advise against. Of course, a photographer is justified in charging much more than he normally would under this agreement.

When it comes to shooting for news agencies, the agreements differ. Remember that photo of Elian Gonzalez being seized by federal agents in Miami? The photographer had been hired by the Associated Press, which means he got paid his daily rate and not much more, even though the photo ended up on the front page of all almost every major newspaper in the world.

Had he been shooting that night on spec, meaning just hanging about in the hopes that he would get a good shot, he could have shopped the photo around and received up to $500,000. Instead, he won a Pulitzer Prize.

Do you remember that picture of Monica Lewinskly and Bill Clinton hugging each other that made the cover of Time Magazine a few years ago, back when the story first broke? That was just a throwaway shot taken by the photographer a few months or maybe even more than a year earlier that had little value at the time. But when the story broke, the photographer recognized Monica's face, went back in his old photo files and ended up selling the photo for a significant amount of money.

I seriously doubt the Archciocese owns the rights to the photo because we would be hearing about a lawsuit instead of a termination. Here is an article that talks about photo rights.

http://www.sptimes.com/News/042700/Worldandnation/Accolades_for_Elian_p.shtml