Employer used photos I took for them for Ad Campaign and lied to what they were to be used for

<p>First, thank you in advance to anyone that may have an answer or lead me to someone who may. I have spent weeks researching my rights but it is rather complex. I will try to make it brief and to the point.<br /> -I worked for a very large clothing retail company in the corporate office as a operations manager. PHOTOGRAPHY is not in anyway in my job title.<br /> -I have had a very small photography business for years. One of the Marketing Managers knew that I did photography and asked if I would shoot some of the clothes that they were trying to sell to another retail company " a huge one" I first agreed to shoot the products for them to use as line sheets to increase the chances that the other company would buy the products. Then it turned out the President of the company wanted me "made me" as I then said I did not want to or feel comfortable doing a large shoot, had me shoot hundreds and hundreds of items over two days. He also hired and paid two professional models.<br /> -The deal went through and the company bought and carried our products. Then come to find out my images were being used in their stores for huge posters and ad campaigns. My company made and provided them with posters and banners to put in their stores with my images that I took and did all the creative direction in the shoot on.<br /> I did not sign anything during the shoot or after. My company never did pay me a bonus as stated they would. I no longer work there and have not received any compensation for that photo shoot. What would other professional photographers like you out there charge for this type of shoot(s) two days, that was being used for ad campaign?</p>

<p>Thank you, thank you.</p>

<p>Were you shooting on company time, when normally you would be earning your usual pay?</p>

<p>Hi Bob, thanks for being the first to answer so fast.<br>

Yes and No. I had to come in earlier than scheduled time and stay later. I also had to work that weekend to make up for my lost time and work piling up.<br>

I was in a salaried position though so OT never counted.</p>

<p>Only a lawyer familiar with the state in which you work, and who can look at your employment contract (or whatever was in effect at the time you were employed there) can really weigh in on this. The issue is whether - as a salaried employee who wouldn't be getting overtime pay for anything else you'd stay late or work a weekend to do for the company - anything you did for them creatively was "for hire." At which point, the copyright is theirs, not yours. Whether or not you got a bonus they alluded to won't likely change the outcome of the copyright holding issue.<br /><br />This is a pretty good object lesson in not providing such services without something in writing, up front. Ouch.</p>

I have seen several threads like this recently, with a similar theme, made by posters who just joined today. It would seem that it is becoming much more common to abuse employees, or that employees are becoming much more gullible. Or perhaps, that these are fictitious situations? Any of those three possibilities could be true.

<p>This kind of thing comes up over and over again. Naturally you know that PN is the wrong place to air your grievance with your former employer. As for the shoot itself, you did not provide enough information about the true requirements of the job to permit a photographer to submit a quote in your stead. I suppose you really want a number you can use to sue the company to recover the amount you think the project would have been worth to the photographer you imagine would have bid and won the work. The amount you will have to prove you're worth when doing the same thing.</p>

<p>There is a lesson here about the strange place I call the "world of work." Your employer is not a mind reader. Everyone brings a collection of interests, skills and experience to the job they are not being paid to provide. These fall into the area of the 'personal' rather than the 'professional' when viewed from the perspective of the tasks your employer asks of you every day. It is up to you whether or not you ever share this sort of thing on the job. You must be mindful of the possibility that you might do work for your company for free a paid professional would otherwise be hired to do under contract. It is always possible to give more to your company than they would believe they ever hired you to. You must be careful to keep a balance here because the path to burnout and eventual termination lies in your taking a sincere position that the company owes you something more that they are unwilling or unable to pay you.</p>

<p>You know that your enthusiasm for your hobby and your willingness to undertake a project outside your department cost an honest-to-God self-supporting professional photographer a contract. Now you want someone, perhaps that same guy, to help you by estimating the job after the fact. What are you thinking? Who would do that? I think you should bite the bullet and offer to pay a professional to give you the quote as part of your cost for your attempt to make your company reimburse you for the wrong you imagine they committed.</p>

<p>Matt is right, you should ask a lawyer. However, if you did something on company time (which it seems like you did) at the request of your employer, you probably have a weak case. After all, if they asked you to write an article about something at work for the company newsletter and it got re-published in the county paper and won a Pulitzer Prize, would you expect to be compensated? Probably not. </p>

<p>If you want to do photography professionally, do it professionally. If they ask you to do it in the context of a job you already have, even if photography is not part of it, don't do it or ask for a contract.</p>

<p>On the Library of Congress website, there is section of circulars and brochures. One is on "Work for Hire." If you get through that and still have questions, the best thing to do is consider discussions with either an employment attorney or an intellectual property attorney.</p>

<p>I would suggest you register your images with the Library of Congress, keeping in mind that there can be legal problems with false or inaccurate information on filings. However, it also seems likely that the time has passed that you would have any timely filing benefits so you may want to get legal advice on proceeding with registration.</p>

<p>Oh, and it's probably a really good idea to consider that if you take legal advice from photographers, you're taking work away from "honest-to-God professional lawyers" who are far more likely to know what they are talking about, can be held professionally responsible for their advice and have had years of schooling in legal matters.</p>

<p>Sorry, lawyers cost money. The same people that complain about their company not compensating them for their photography would prefer to get free advice from non-lawyers. This is very common here and is probaby an indicator as to why people don't get the legal stuff in place before they turn over photos.</p>

<p>Although many folks on this site are well meaning, their legal advice is worth what you pay for it. If you want legal advice you need to follow through with an attorney to review your situation with you...they usually work on a contingency basis and often don't charge for an initial review...which is where they try to make a determination if you have legal grounds for a complaint. No, I'm not an attorney...I just had a ton of them working for me for twenty years, and learned a lot about free advice vs somebody who's trained in the law and licensed, and contracted to assist you with penalties for failing to provide you with proper advice. Good luck.</p>

<p>Lawyers don't work on contingency for cases that don't look good...</p>

<p>The only case it sounds like you have is regarding your bonus, and even that would be hard to prove.<br>

As for actually charging them more for usage and your rights on that. I would agree with Jeff. An employer sees their employee and notices they have a skill to perform a new task. It doesn't matter if it is being able to photograph something, program something, or know how to collate stuff on the photocopier. They asked you to use that skill during your job and you did. If you had negotiated a contract through your small business with them it would have been completely different.</p>

And it would have made a sterling entry on your resume prior to having being tarnished by this public grievance.

<p>Actually "W" hasn't actually asked for any legal advice here. The question asked was what pros would charge for such a shoot. Although there was an attempt to be "brief and to the point", only a tiny fraction of the post addressed that issue.</p>

<p>Since the question seems out of place after all this legal lead in we are given, it seems appropriate to assume that the underlying intent here is for legal advice. Despite the weeks of research, there is insufficient information given to determine whether W own's the images. Considering the information given that is actually relevent, I am pessimistic that there will be a viable claim.</p>

<p>It is clear that W needs to consult an attorney so that the proper information can be solicited and then given an expert analysis.</p>

Just as an aside for those who might pose questions with legal import, Google picks up rather quickly on Photo net threads

and are searchable by anyone. You may think it's an almost-private inquiry to a faceless crowd, but if an issue brought to

light here is later contested in the courts, it would not take much searching in many instances to bring things out that one

party or another might regret and the opposing litigant could quote.

 

As has been stated here over and over, this is not a free legal advice section, particularly as regards to copyright law. Which

incidentally, might compete with the tax codes for obfuscation. The primary difference being there are no "copyright police,"

the image creator must do his own due diligence to properly protect his art. There's no one to protect you from mistakes you

might make and an attormey can't always correct prior poor judgement.

 

-Ed

<p>I'm likely taking a totallydifferent (and perhaps wrong headed for some)approach but this whole thing makes me wonder if this isn't ulitmately going to be just a huge educational exersize for Mr. Hagan. Legalities aside (which would take years to sort out), there seems a huge opportunity to make maximum use of the 'work' done as a commercial portfolio centre piece. The higher the quality and importance of the ad campaign and related media is, the greater the potential benefit to the photog.<br>

I submit that perhaps the best way to make peace with this is to learn from it, and make maximum use of the experince to build the business into legitimate contracts with new clients.<br>

$0.02 tossed in.</p>

<p>Next time if you do a task related to your employer; on you employers time do not assume that you own it; whether writing a poem; making a spread sheet; making a to do list on cleaning a toilet; an inventory list; shooting some images; sketching some artwork; writing an article; whatever.<br>

<br /> ****These type of threads show up each month on photo.net.</p>

<p>Folks want the best of both worlds; a secure employee job worth insurance and benefits; plus ownership of the works they did while an employee; thus to blackmail ones employer for more cash.</p>

<p>****Next time if you are an employee and shoot images and want full ownership too; bring up the issue BEFORE assuming stuff; get a contract signed. Your employer then can either sign; or go elsewhere. It really doesnt matter of your job title says to make a clean the toilet list or image.<br>

<br /> In weak economic times sueing ones employer might be interesting; or just shift you down one notch on the layoff rung.</p>

<p>See a lawyer; make claim to any thing you created as an employee! :)</p>

<p>I agree with thise who think you have a weak case, though I'm not a lawyer either. I wonder about two further things though. </p>

<p>If you were promisesd a bonus did you pursue that whilst still employed? It must have been pretty obvious that getting anything from them would be easier whilst working for them. Was the bonus offer quantified or substantiated in any way? Letters? emails? witnesses? Or was it a generalised "we'll see you right" type of comment?</p>

<p>Before you spend money or further time on this, I think you should reassure yourself that the use of your photography is the real issue here. If ( and I don't know whether this is the case) you are angry with your ex employer for reasons unconnected to this its possible to convince yourself all all sorts of "rights" that seem kind of trivial from the outside. </p>

<p>W Hagan, sorry to say, but you really should have ironed out the details BEFORE the shoot.<br /> <br /> Personally, I would have made sure that my employer was aware that the photo shoot was not part of my normal job duty and that I would be working as a consultant with a fee separate from my pay.</p>

<p>Sorry to say, but if I were you, I'd just drop the matter. If you choose to sue your employer over this and lose the case, not only will you have attorney fees to pay, but do you think you'll be chosen for that next big promotion?</p>

<p>On the other had, if you win, how much do you think you'll get? Your employer may not be able to fire you over a case like this, but how much do you think you'll enjoy working there afterwards? Not to mention, we are in a recession, over 2 million Americans have lost thier jobs since the beggining of the year. Honestly, you should be happy to be employed. Period.</p>

<p>Jarvis vs. K2 .... google it<br /> <br /> Contract. End of story. I do nothing unless the other party has signed on the dotted line. There could be a case made here, but it's so complicated by the fact that you worked for the company, I'm not sure it would stand up. As much as I sympathize with you over the misuse of your work, i really don't.... business before photography..... too many photographers decide to just be photographers instead of being business people first and foremost. In the end, they get themselves screwed by any one of the million people out there looking to grab something for nothing.</p>

<p>Positive spin? Go take some pictures of all the work that was used, and use it as a launching pad for a photography career. "yes, i've done some commercial work. Here's an example...."</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Your employer may not be able to fire you over a case like this</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Especially since he said he is no longer employed there.</p>

<p>I am not an attorney and my comment is worth exactly what I am charging you.</p>

<p>An employer asked you to do something. You did it. If you do not have anything in writing wrt a bonus, you do not get anything. What you did is part of your job, regardless of whether or not it is in the job description. Say you know how to write software, and while it may not be part of your job, you were asked to write code. Would you expect to be paid for it?</p>

<p>A bonus is one thing, but as far as I know you cannot have a separate contract with your employer for services rendered. It will conflict with any employment contract you have, which if in the US, will DEFINITELY have a clause regarding the company owning intellectual rights to anything you develop while an employee.</p>

<p>Live and learn.</p>

<p>Anything you do on company time no matter what your job discription may be subjects you to the "other duties as assign" category of the work rules of your company unless you are in a bargaining unit.</p>

<p>If you agreed to take the pictures as part of your job, you have no recourse. Even if you have your own studio, you didn't sign a contract or MOA regarding the photography. Your employer only has to compensate your for you time on the job.</p>

<p>I think you might be better off by letting this go as a lesson learned.</p>

<p>

 

<p > </p>

<ul>

<li>Wow ask and you shall receive. Thank you all that offered sound advice and your message. I want to clear up a couple of the questions and remarks made within. I don't want to leave anyone hanging and wanted to provide answers to some constructive questions that were left and thank those that took time to respond to my questions.</li>

</ul>

 

<ul>

<li>I understand that this is not a legal forum or should I use the advice to proceed with such from the feedback given. I was not seeking legal advice to move forward based upon information that may be given on rates and image pricing for a commercial photo-shoot. I have done my share of head shots, birthdays, parties, etc, but never had my work to be considered being used on such a large scale. I know what I would charge for that type work. With many professional and admired photographers here, I was trying to get a fair market value of going rates. The research I have done is with photographers that are with agencies and while you can view their work, rates are usually not published. I am just a normal little guy in the scheme of things and my prior employer may now ask me to tell them how much I want for the work. I am not going to get into all the details and bad mouth or name the employer and reasons why I am not there, this is not the forum for it. Just seeking what is fair. And since I was not compensated and I explicitly told them,”yes have proof” that I did not want to do it and was forced to, then let go when complained that it was used for other reasons than what was told to me, my questions lay more in property rights, fair amount to ask for shoot, etc. I could not just afford to walk away from my job because I didn't want to do it or thought it was not the right thing for me to do. Just a simple man that has bills and needs to keep a roof over his head like so many. Missing a couple paychecks can spell a lot of trouble and no place to live. I do want to be a photographer I just had not grown enough in my art to walk away and make it a FT business to say goodbye no way to employer. I would think that there are others out there also that can understand that and have had to hold a job while becoming your own or am I that naive? </li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li>I may be literally comparing apples to oranges here but I wonder if we step outside of being photographers and look at it as other types of artists, would it be right? If a man works with XYZ company and is basically a pencil pusher and in his outside of the office life a singer song writer, how would this scenario look? XYZ company sells a new hybrid of apples, the want the employee to do a song about how great the apples are. The employee says he does not want to do a song about apples, they tell him he has to do a song about apples. They want to sell the apples to the largest restaurant chain in the country. The deal is made and now the restaurant chain is selling the apples. Also the restaurant are using his song to play in all their restaurants to draw attention to customers about the new apples and to sell more apples.</li>

</ul>

 

 

<p > </p>

<ul>

<li>Yes I have learned many lessons.</li>

</ul>

 

<p >

<ul>

<li>True, I just signed up to be a user on the forum however I have often been to this site to read and inform myself on current photography education. </li>

</ul>

Thank you again</p>

 

</p>

<p>You know, if I had a dime for every time my job as a systems programmer called on my to work extra hours, perform tasks that were not in the job description, etc.; I'd be sitting pretty right now. It's a salaried job, like yours, and these things all come with the territory. Quit your griping.</p>