I read AJ's post about the lavender field photo, I am curious to know what a photographer should do if he/she finds their foto being used by a magazine, advertiser, gallery, or the like without the photographer's permission.

Thanks!

I've just been contacted by a publishing house of an architectural journal who want to use one of my photos. What do i need to know about copyright, permissions etc.? How much should I charge? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Re payment, I would happy to offer more than what istock ask for, but not too much as times are tight right now.

As a one-person business, I just can't afford it.

I guess you need to find out the circulation of the publication, the size your image would be used and the length of time it would be appearing for. The bigger the publication, the more you can charge. That is what most new photo agencies do. I never, ever use Getty or the pricier agencies...I can't afford to.

thanks =)

So far, I've had three publications/site ask permission to use my images -- and I've been thrilled and honored each time.

I'm doing better offline, selling on consignment at a gift shop in my neighborhood.

Thanks!

I've been contacted about 10 times by people who have found my images on flickr and have been interested in buying them. Three were magazines, one was a college marketing department looking to create a course calendar, and the rest were individuals just wanting to buy a print.

It's been a real thrill selling photos through flickr - a site I really love both for its community and its photographic talent. I can honestly say it's pushed my photography to a new level.

Thanks!

Still, to my knowledge i've gotten about 40-50 shots in various places with my name, from Maps to Poetry mags to webpages. It's given me a great deal of satisfaction as an amateur.

I have sold my pictures and always demanded a fair price because of its uniqueness and originality. Recently, one of my photograph won a competition and I received an e-reply that I should send money for this picture to be included in the forthcoming book. Irefused and demanded the money form the publisher. I am still waiting to hear.

I replied, saying I'm always interested in new outlets for my work, so I'd like to know more about the gallery, where it would be, how the photos would be sold and, of course, the proposed payment terms for prints of my photo.

To date, a couple of weeks on, I've had no reply. Given that her lavender products are very greedily overprices, I conclude that the cheeky cow wanted to get other people's photos for free so that she could make loads of money out of them.

Needless to say, I'll be watching out for my image being used without my permission!

"Don’t use Flickr for commercial purposes.
Flickr is for personal use only. If we find you selling products, services, or yourself through your photostream, we will terminate your account. Any other commercial use of Flickr, Flickr technologies (including APIs, FlickrMail, etc), or Flickr accounts must be approved by Flickr. For more information on leveraging Flickr APIs, please see our Services page. If you have other open questions about commercial usage of Flickr, please feel free to contact us."
http://www.flickr.com/guidelines.gne

The most I was paid for an image was by a French advertising agency who paid €1100 for two uses of the same image. I have sold small sets (3-5 images) to airline and travel magazines for up to $200 US.

I think it's Great that Photogrpahers are Earning a Buck from their Work + Efforts*

We're in the process of Launching UWayCoolr in WEB3D.0 which is going to create tremendous Opportunities + $$$ for Photographers WorldWide*

Flickr is also a Fantastic spot to Blog from + a Super Way to get Exciting Visual Images up for your Readers Quickly + Easily!

Cheers Everybody + Happy Shooting in 2008! )

I credit Flickr 100% for my becoming a professional photographer. I'd say that a little over half of my business comes directly from folks seeing my work on Flickr and then contacting me about buying prints for display, jpgs for publication, or my time for photo sessions and other projects.

Truly, Flickr has changed my life. I'm a huge fan.

He offered me $100, then told me the company would pay $150. Since then, I´ve sold several images to a variety of company and now living in Berlin, I´ve sold images for 400 euros to 100 euros which magazines, graphic designers, or trade publications find.

A big factor, I believe, is that my Flickr stream has many hits. I also had a "hot streak" in Brazil where daily my photos of trees or landscapes were on the Explore page.

I forgot to ask the last companies how they found my photos but the first guy found it by searching the interestingness tags.

I put some photos on Dreamstime, but it´s not worth it. I have a friend who has traveled all over the world for photography, and posted tons of images to several stock sites. Finally, after 1 year all that work amounted to 300 euros. I think he was short changed.

I´d rather sell less pictures ocassionally through Flickr and work freelance, then sell my stock photos for penny. That´s my opinion. Of course, some stock photographers make thousands of dollars with these sites and specialize in that.

Let´s keep clicking!

Thanks for posting this great article!

I've licensed one image because of Flickr, though I have been contacted for images on other occasions. I have not put many images up, or much time into it. I think so far it works out best for art buyers who don't necessarily need the absolute best technical quality images. Although there are some top quality images, there is no screening process to ensure it. I also think it'll best serve sellers who have the most free time. Most likely those who are not professional photographers. People employed at larger companies where they can't surf the internet on someone else's time, and dime, or those whose evenings and weekends are not filled with travel, work, and photo shoots.

I like to sell and license images through any venue, though I wonder what kind of time those who have sold a lot have had to put into it. Is it worth it? What kind of return are you getting for your time. One photo shoot may net me $5k (or more). What kind of time would be required to net that through licensing of images on sites such as Flickr?

Our photographers come from all over the world, but they all have one thing in common, inspiring, emotive images that they want to share with other creative people.

All the images can be found online, it's free to register and search and using our online calculator you can purchase an image license and download that image to your desktop.

Thats like a 4 year ROI from what I love doing in free time. So, I wouldn't be surprised.

Just last week I made another image purchase for the cover of the upcoming winter catalog from a Flickr user. In Terry's case (since you've outed him here!) I think we had a very informal understanding of limited usage, etc. But in the most recent Flickr purchase we actually exchanged a signed agreement clarifying how we could use the image, scope, etc. I imagine as the upper quality strata of Flickr users come to realize a big portion of the marketplace is shifting towards them, they'll become more sophisticated in agreements, pricing, etc

Flickr is such an amazing entity because it lies at the intersection of so many trends. High quality digital SLR type cameras are within the reach of anyone who's aspires to be a photographer. The web itself provides a clearinghouse (photographers pushing images up) and marketplace (buyers pulling them down) in the form of Flickr (and to a lesser degree, other similar sites). The web also provides the marketing mechanism in the form of specialized blogs like this one.

Flickr is also interesting in that it is an inductive engine that is *producing* (semi) professional photographers. While there are some truly terrible photographers on Flickr as well as many amazingly good ones, the biggest category belongs to the 'pretty good' to 'good' ones. This last group posts their work often and they are quite receptive to constructive criticism. Flickr has various features that let users rate photographs in the form of comments and views. Because of these features, these users 'pretty good' to 'good' users can easily zero in on and study the very best Flickr photographers and their work. It all make makes for a very effective 'farm team' type system that Corbis and Getty better figure out soon, because as I said, while Flickr lies at the intersection of these trends, Corbis/Getty are in the crosshairs of said same effect.

There's so much more to talk about, but I've got to get back to work. Truly these are exciting times we live in...

I was contacted by a book publisher who ended up paying to use one of my Flickr shots as the cover of a book. In that case it was enough to pay for Photoshop. I was worried that if they were trawling Flickr they must not have any budget, but that turned out to be a wrong assumption.

Even without any 'marketing', I've been contacted on about 5 occasions asking for permission to publish my Flickr photos. Two were books, one magazine, and a few NFP websites. The pay was modest, of course, but it's a good start.

Interestingly enough, the magazine photo editor told me that many people in his business just grab stuff off Flickr without respect to the authors. He said his colleagues thought he was crazy for contacting me and offering to pay. This is in Russia, mind you...

I may just take some initiative myself to see if I can sell a few more photos.

All of my images are heavily compressed and watermarked so it would be hard for someone to actually steel them and use them, and I have had many requests for 'free use', which I ignore.

I have images in Getty, and other top drawer agencies, and have made my living as a professional photographer for 17 years.

iStock, I believe, is a rip off for most photographers - although it fills a market niche, it in general undervalues images, and requires submitting photographers to jump through quite a few hoops to earn 30% on their one and two dollar sales.

I would recommend the new PhotoShelter Collection as a much more viable model for amatuer/pro photographers and photo researchers.