Rangefinder - June 2017

FOCUS

LEGAL EAGLE

When a Couple’s Venue
Wants Free Advertising
What happens when you get hired to photograph a wedding at a local venue
but the venue asks you to sign an agreement before you can shoot there?

BY AARON M. ARCE STARK
Let’s say you are a photographer,
and you get hired to photograph a
wedding at a local venue—but the
venue asks you to sign an agreement
before you can photograph there. This
agreement says two things: that you are
giving the venue all rights to all pictures
you take there, and that the venue is not
giving you anything in exchange.

Some of our clients have faced a similar situation. The agreement they were given said that the photographer would relinquish “any reasonable expectation of privacy or confidentiality” associated with the pictures they take, as well as “all rights to ALL photographs/video that [the venue] acquired from the couple or found on social media.” The agreement also said that the photographer “will not receive financial compensation of any type,” and that the publication of the photographs “confers no right of ownership or royalties whatsoever.” In other words, merely because the photographer is taking pictures inside a venue, that venue wants to be able to use any picture taken, in any way it wants.

That, gentle reader, is called “free advertising.” It is also asking the photographer to give up a right for free, which she could otherwise sell for money.

The photographer controls her copyright
and would normally only give a license in
exchange for cold, hard cash, but the venue
may imply that she can’t photograph the
event at all unless she signs the release.

Let’s pick this apart.

The first question is, can the venue stop you from taking pictures there? And the answer is, unfortunately, yes. If any business or other private property asks you to stop taking pictures—including “no photography” signs—you have to comply, or the owner can have you removed from the premises.

The second question, of course, is would a venue actually kick you out for not signing the release? And the answer to that is, probably not, because it would upset the real client: the person who hired both the photographer and the venue in the first place. Imagine you rented out a restaurant for your wedding and the restaurant wouldn’t let the photographer in. What’s more, if the real client’s contract with the venue states that a photographer will be allowed, then a release like this is a trick, because the venue has given up its right to eject a photographer in its contract with the client.

Situations like this can be nuanced,
so don’t assume you’re getting ripped
off if a venue asks you to sign a similar
release. For example, a small restaurant
that occasionally hosts events may want to
repost pictures of the event on its social
media pages. This is mostly harmless, and
a small restaurant may struggle to pay a
photographer licensing fees, so either
the restaurant has to make itself unlikable
by ejecting the photographer or it has to
simply refrain from using any pictures it
finds. In cases like that, a photographer may
feel okay being generous. On the other
hand, a large and organized corporate
venue may have a complex and expensive
advertising presence that will use your
pictures for years to come, so giving them
the right to your copyrights outright may be
more of a rip-off.

Think twice before signing a release like the latter, and don’t be afraid to hand it back to the venue and say you will sign for a price. As it is, the “price” the venue is paying for the right to use your copyrights is that it gives up its own right to eject you, but don’t be afraid to say that isn’t enough.

Your copyrights are valuable, and you have the right to request valuable consideration in exchange for the right to use them.

It has also been noted that a venue will bypass the photographer entirely and go straight to the client to obtain the images.

This is why it is important to have a contract between you and your clients that limits their use of the images and strictly prevents them from passing on the images to the venue. If, however, the venue does get hold of these images, your clients could be liable to you for breach of contract, and the venue liable for copyright infringement—even if the venue thought they obtained the images in good faith. The venue, regardless of whether they are aware or not, can only get permission to use the photos from the photographer, not the photographer’s clients.