Wedding Photography- Rights to your pictures?

Read All the photographers' posts here. Because you don't want to pass up a great photographer for a request that isn't necessary.

Our photographer releases the rights to us as part of the package?

Hi guys,

Here's some reading so we can settle this! http://info.legalzoom.com/owns-copyright-wedding-pictures-20832.html

Best,

Carmen

My photography package includes the rights to all my photos

Thanks everyone!!!

Any recommendations in New York?

Everything that needed to be said was said by Jay.

Printing rights. You get printing rights. The person who captures the photograph will always own the copyright on the photograph unless there is legal documentation stating otherwise. There was actually a case of the monkey selfie... the camera owner said it was his photo, people argued that since the monkey took the photograph, the monkey owns the copyright. Eventually the US ruled that animals can't have copyrights and the photograph is for public use. BUT had they not made that ruling specifically, it would have been the monkey's photo. Pretty funny!

Our package includes the rights to our photos but we get them all after the wedding (including engagements and Bridals.) So if we want our engagements before the wedding then we have to spend a certain amount of $$$ to get all of our engagement photos.

Exactly what everyone was else has said, but I'll chip in anyway I specifically looked for photographers that included, or offered a la carte, the printing rights to photos. I don't mind ordering large prints & wall art through them, or directing family to order through them, but I love to scrapbook, so I wanted to make sure I could print what I needed to for my own books. Of course I know that the photographer owns the copyright and can use the photos for marketing/whatever they want, which is absolutely okay by me, but I just want to be able to print photos here and there. Also, I don't pay per photo for the printing rights, it's a set price (or part of a package) for all the edited photos together. It depends on what's important to you.

I can't really add much what hasn't been said already, but when I was researching photographers I often realised that some used this to keep the advertised price down. So you saw that they offered a package for X dollars, but in the fine print it said that you'll have to pay for the printing right separately. I guess this used to make sense when you didn't want most negatives anyway and only ordered prints and albums through the photographer.

I definitely looked for a place that offered the full rights to reprint, so I can make my own albums at other places.

We made sure that we hired a photographer who was happy to put in our contract that we could have the files on a hard drive via .PNG or RAW files, not JPEG as others had insisted upon. As long as we don't reproduce or sell them and we do give credit to our photographer if we want to post on social media, all is well. We had the best luck with documentary style photographers or photojournalists who were more documentary rather than fine art in nature, since it seems that fine artists are more attached to their artistic license, while documentarians understand that we want the photos to be ours, not their artistic interpretation. The reason this was important to us was that we also wanted the uncompressed files so that we could have them on a large digital display and that the quality in pixels would stand the test of time. I hope that helps!

As a wedding planner, I would like to use photos to promote my business and services. Website, social media and publication web/print. I have permission directly from my clients, this is the obvious one.

I also have to get permission from the photographer?

I have to display the copyright on every photo?

It is a possibility that a client gives permission and the photographer says no?

If anyone has an example, I would love to see a sample request a planning company would send to a photographer.

I don't want my marketing campaigns with copyrights of other companies.

This is also sensitive for my company as my service is providing vetted vendor recommendations. If I display my top 5 photographers copyrights all over my website, I am giving away valued information.

Every wedding photography business has a different business model. I for example deliver everything on flash drive and personal online gallery and grant personal use rights.

I was born and raised in Forest Hills and have family and friends throughout Long Island and NYC. Im looking to break into that market, so call me. I can offer you something very special and affordable while delivering award winning wedding photography I am know for in Florida, Charleston, Denver and Puerto Rico.

Couture Bridal Photography

954-399-0741

www.CoutureBridalPhotography.com

Every wedding photography business has a different business model. I for example deliver everything on flash drive and personal online gallery and grant personal use rights.

I was born and raised in Forest Hills and have family and friends throughout Long Island and NYC. Im looking to break into that market, so call me. I can offer you something very special and affordable while delivering award winning wedding photography I am know for in Florida, Charleston, Denver and Puerto Rico.

Couture Bridal Photography

954-399-0741

www.CoutureBridalPhotography.com

I’m asking for a work for hire contract, that allows portfolio use. I’m really bothered a photogrpher owning rights to any images.

View Quoted Comment This is very similar to mine! The phrase our contract uses is “print release” or something; they retain the rights to them for promotional materials but we can print anything we want. They also put the USB stick in a cute keepsake box which was a really nice touch!

It depends on the photographer. I have found some in our area who provider full rights and prints to all photos with the price included in their package, while others make you pay an arm and a leg to get your pictures on top of the general package pricing.

View Quoted Comment

What region are you in, if you don't mind my asking? If you're near where I am having my wedding I'd love to know who the photographer is. My fiance does not want his pictures posted online and I'm afraid that is going to either make it impossible to book a decent photographer or put the cost of photography out of reach.

View Quoted Comment

MrMonkey, I felt the same way you did when I found out how it works. I assumed until I looked into it that hiring a photographer to photograph your wedding made it a work for hire.

Having done some research on the topic, I think you may have a hard time finding a good photographer who is willing to agree to a work for hire arrangement, and it may scare away some photographers that you even ask. But if you do find one I'd love to know who it is and how you negotiated it.

I asked a friend, and had great wedding pictures taken by him way back in 1994 because I was creeped out by the thought of a stranger "owning" pictures of one of the most important days of my life.

Just revisited the issue with my daughter's senior pictures. Still don't like it. The photographer said I have to buy almost $200 worth of pics to get the digital "rights" to reprint any pictures - that is not offered ala carte. Not even real ownership. This is a nice photographer who has done a good job, yet I am left feeling ripped off and over a barrel - not a way to build loyal clients and repeat business, in my experience.

If vain people want/like to be featured on photographers' websites, ok great, so maybe give them a discount, but like many have mentioned, a portrait sitting/wedding seems to me to be the definition of "work for hire" and other attempts by a photographer to extract extra money come across as a bit of a racket. Photographers should charge a fair price for their time and overhead and equipment so they can make a profit and move on to the next client, because in 99.9999% of cases, it's really not the Mona Lisa you're shooting . . .

This may be something legal zoom or some self help website needs to take up on behalf of private people everywhere who are tired of being told they have no choice - of course they do, it's their money and their major life events!

View Quoted Comment Hello- just a question--that Taylor Swift song that you listened to and danced to at the wedding--and maybe played on an instrument at some time-- do you believe that you OWN the rights to that song because you personally experienced it and enjoyed it? That you should be able to broadcast the song on your own platform without compensating the maker of the artwork, Taylor? Did you study for years and spend a significant sum of money to learn the craft of photographic perfection? Are you familiar with the term "intellectual property"? The photographer made those images--they belong to her/him. If you buy fabric for a couch and then want to make drapes because you have none left--do you take it to CVS to make copies of the fabric or do you buy more from the fabric store? Similar principle.