APA Notice, September 7, 2009
From Stephen Best, APA National CEO
One of our members, who is also an educator received an email last week that needs to be brought to the attention of all APA Student and Educator members. It is posted here:
Dear Professor xxxx,
I am the author of the upcoming book “Stocked Up”, a collection of 1,000 photographs. The book will be published next year in the US by How Books, and in the UK and abroad by RotoVision SA. I am writing to you because I am in the process of soliciting images for inclusion from all types of photographers, but especially students. When I was a photography major I submitted my work to a contest and was featured in the resulting book. This was an extremely empowering event for me and gave me confidence in my work. It was a professor who let us know about the contest and made one of our term assignments be to shoot images for submission.
I would be thrilled if you would share this opportunity with your students. It is free to submit work and anyone may submit up to five images via my website www.stockedupbook.com. The website contains all the details and necessary forms, but if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me at any point.
Thank you so much for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Kristin
Kristin Ellison
Author, Stocked Up: 1,000 Rights-Free Photos
Why is this a concern?
Let me also post the reply this APA member sent back to Kristin Ellison.
Kristin, this book is one of the most disgusting publishing concepts that I have ever seen. Your scheme, attempting to lure innocent art students to grant unlimited usage rights to your customers so as to support sales of your book and DVD, is fundamentally disrespectful of artists and artists’ rights, and amounts to no less than the rape of emerging artists. I have no words. Other than, SHAME ON YOU, and shame on Rotovision for publishing this book.
XXXX
The appeal to students to have images published in a book and on a DVD is immense. The problem comes in when the student photographers that will have images used are not compensated and will be effectively, giving up all their rights to someone that will be profiting from their images. On top of that, the terms and conditions say the student photographer will indemnify the publisher.
All photography students should heed this message: learn to control your rights as visual artists through good business practices, licensing and registration of your images with the US Copyright Office. Visit www.useplus.com for more information of the importance of controlling your work. Some other important resources you might want to read are on the APA website: Licensing and the Value of Copyright, by Jeff Sedlik, and The APA National Business Manual (login to the Member Login area to access the Password to open the downloaded Members’ Only sections of the Manual).
For more dialog on the request from Kristin Ellison and Stocked Up with a reply from Kristin, visit the John Harrington blog, Photo Business News & Forum:
http://photobusinessforum.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-to-rip-off-1000-photos.htm