 Ryan Murphy |
Help with unauthorized use of one of my Photos... I'm hoping someone can help me with an issue that's come up: I was recently contacted by an individual on Facebook wondering if he could use a photo of mine for the cover of a book he's "self-publishing," essentially for free. The problem is it appears he is already selling the book with my image on the cover, as is evidenced by his website. Any suggestions as to handle this? The photo is here The person's website that is promoting the book (where you can see some edited version of the photo) is a href="http://williamashantihobbs.com/bookstore.html">here. Thanks in advance!
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Ryan Murphy |
Sorry, the link for the person's website is here.
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
Don't know if you'll take this as good news or bad news, but with a side by side comparison of the links you provided, it actually looks like he didn't use your picture. It looks like he used another picture taken from the same vantage point.
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Ryan Murphy |
I agree. I may have linked to the wrong photo as he hasn't actually told me specifically which of my photos he's referring to...the one I linked to was merely my guess, as I have taken numerous shots from this same vantage point and uploaded many of them to various parts of the web. This vantage point is quite common. Regardless, I'm still hoping for some help in response to the questions...
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
Well, first thing you should do, or should have done was register for copyright. And for the sake of argument, we'll say that it is your picture. You can send a cease and desist letter to him and any of the other parties involved(if there are any) with the publishing of the book. If he doesn't stop using your photo, then it's time to get into litigation that may not lead to any monetary rulings coming your way at first. You may end up suing just to stop further publication, and maybe getting all books already published with your photo pulled. Or it could lead to suing for fees for unauthorized use and for further damages. But to have a case, it needs to start with a copyright registration. Photos are copyrighted at the moment they are created, by the creator. But when it comes to the court room, without a copyright registration, you're not starting on solid ground. You said yourself that it's a common vantage point. He could have gone to the same spot and taken his own picture. And you also said that you've uploaded the same kind of picture to various parts of the web(I'll take that as to mean several web hosting sites like Flickr). There's something called creative commons that is clouding the subject (whether incorrectly or correctly) of once a picture is uploaded to a hosting site, people think that if I find it on a certain host site, or even blog, I can use the photo. Always best to talk to a lawyer that deals with copyright infringement.
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Ryan Murphy |
I got some clarification from the guy that the image currently on the book is (supposedly) a stock image. Assuming that's the case, but that he wants to replace it with my image, what would be the appropriate way to think about licensing for this purpose?
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
Base your price on location in book, number of books published, area of distribution, the level of the publisher behind the book. The book cover is the marquee spot, you should get more money for it. The more books are published, the more the photo is used. Is it available in stores city wide, state wide, regional? He's self publishing, there's not the money from a publishing company behind it. It's probably coming out of his pocket from his day job. You can base your licensing on how long he is planning on publishing the book. Are there plan's on second editions? He might be trying to work it on a per order basis. Five years from now, will he get a customer who wants the book and will he expect to be able to use the photo whenever he gets a chance? Or do you limit him to a year's use of the photo, or 1000 copies for the first year. Or do you want royalty free? Set a one time price, and let him use it for his book as much as he wants. He have to think of things like that.
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