Negotiating Photography Copyrights

As long as you have printing rights to make copies, post on social media. make photo gifts without going back to the photographer to pay, you may be fine. If you're getting raw unedited photo files make sure the printing rights allow you to edit (touch up, etc) or legally you'd have to pay to have him do/approve any edits I think.

Arg. I can't find my contract. I know we changed something about this because maybe ours didn't specify we had printing rights (maybe I gave us copyrights but said he could use photos for marketing?). Our photographer was awesome so I didn't mind if he wanted to use our photos for publicity. I may have been concerned about the idea of him selling our pics but then I thought maybe that's just standard language because who would buy photos of another couple? If he wanted to sell photos he took of our venue or decor, fine by me!

P.S. He/She doesn't have language in there prohibiting you from writing a negative review, does it? I'd never sign with that clause.

You can negotiate this if it’s a big deal for you. Don’t use either if they aren’t willing to respect your privacy and negotiated.

I think you are going to have a hard time with this. You may be able to get a photographer to agree to limiting the use of images from your wedding for marketing purposes only but I think that may be a stretch.

View Quoted Comment We are good with the rights we have- we can print photos and share the video as long as we don’t profit from it. We are getting both raw and edited files.

The question has more to do with their rights to use photos of my wedding. I’m ok with allowing them to use it for marketing and self promotion (and wouldn’t mind contract language saying that). I just don’t want it to end up in some photo stock website or something... and I would like language to that effect in the contract instead of a verbal agreement.

Im just not sure how to approach that conversation. 😕

You can try, but you probably won't have much luck b/c of how a copyright works. The person who creates a work of art owns the copyright to the image, regardless of the person in the image. So, your photographer has the copyright to his/her images b/c he/she creates them. By allowing you to use the photos not for profit, the photographer gives you a license (right to use his/her copyright) but the photographer retains ownership of the copyright to "your" photos (i.e. images of you). You can request to modify the license so that the photographer agrees not use the photos in a certain way, but its only a contractual agreement, you can't change the nature of the photographer's copyright. If the photographer violates your contract by using the photos in a certain way not permitted in the contract, you sue for a contract violation. Again, you can try, but I can't imagine many professional photographers agreeing to limit their copyright usage of their own photos.

View Quoted Comment I think just share what you said! You won’t offend them, those are valid concerns. Ours was really easy going & when I expressed my concerns we edited that language. Agreed, it needs to be in the contract. Just ask for a revision that makes you feel more protected.

Yeah, I don't think you're going to win that.

I think you forget that it's the photographer's art, which he owns, because he created it. Some photographers *do* give full copyright, but I've found that to be extremely rare.

View Quoted Comment

Yes, what she said.