Lifetouch Photo Grab

<p>My youngest daughter came home from school all excited yesterday - </p>

<p>"Daddy the school needs a photographer!" and handed me a printout from the school and Lifetouch... </p>

<p>Basically they are looking for parents to "donate" photos from events at school to the school yearbook. In return, you get NOTHING, and lose the copyright to your image. (All submissions become the property of Lifetouch or its subsidiary with no payment, credit, or return of rights on unpublished images. Lifetouch reserves the right to reprint, use, sell, etc... any and all submissions with no compensation to the creator of the work.) </p>

<p>Lifetouch is a for profit company and is making money off of the sale of the yearbooks. They should at a minimum credit the photographers, and even look into providing a small stipend for contributors. </p>

<p>But alas - there are plenty of Mommy (and Daddy) togs who will give up their images to Lifetouch.</p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

<p>It's for a kids' school! A parent who's a professional photographer might be concerned about it, but I doubt most mommies and daddies are worried about copyrights of their pics of their kids and school events and are more concerned with feeling they're part of putting together a nice memento and can offer something personal to make it special. If the almighty dollar, pound, or euro determines the decisions and runs the lives of the Lifetouch people, that's fine. It doesn't have to run the lives of the mommies and daddies. If it is the case that they are being naive (and I wouldn't necessarily characterize it this way), their naivete is more appealing than the alternative which, it seems to be, is a heavy dose of cynicism.</p>

<p>I would be willing give a few images towards my child's yearbook even if someone's making some money on it. Something cool of course. Especially if it won't sell anyway. If it could be used for third party advertising or other things beyond the business' own uses, then no.</p>

<p>When I was the photographer, layout artist and cartoonist for my high school annual back in 1978, I never thought about copyright issues or even cared.</p>

<p>However, I did constantly sigh in relief at the thought that a company outside of our school was doing all the work of paste up and production, providing typography and saddle stitched printing on hard cover editions so I and the rest of our high school annual staff didn't have to do all that work.</p>

<p>I also knew the publishing company could care less about making money off my cartoons and photographs published in our high school annual because there would be <strong>NO DEMAND</strong> for them due to the fact that they were topical and relevant only to my high school. I mean who the heck would even see this work or even care but my high school mates?</p>

<p>IOW...You might not want to take this too seriously or else suffer the risk of entering into "Annoyingly Pretentious Yuppy" territory.</p>

<p>But if you happen to see any of your work make it to the big time, it won't be hard to spot in the media at which time is when you lawyer up. You'll cash in then because you let them do all your promotion work.</p>

<p>Gentlepersons:</p>

<p>Yearbook slimes are out there. They depend upon parents emotionality to “stick-it-to-’em.” They are scum. They use children for unreasonable profit. They’d put their sons and daughters to work the street on their knees. </p>

<p>That being said, the school fools have chosen them to do the yearbook (maybe for a “little of the action).” So you are stuck with a choice. Give in for the best interests of the children or stand on your rights. </p>

<p>Next time choose school board members more carefully. You can get an honest equitable yearbook creator; stop expensive sweetheart contracts that cost the school money they could otherwise use for your child’s education and get the administration back on track. </p>

<p>A. T. Burke</p>

The choice really isn't THAT draconian, Indeed, because its the word "choice" in there. Granted, we are more informed than many, but that goes to the well inspired point of educating a school board to help make more informed choices. (pun not originally intended but fitting nevertheless)..

<blockquote>

<p>Yearbook slimes are out there. They depend upon parents emotionality to “stick-it-to-’em.” They are scum. They use children for unreasonable profit. They’d put their sons and daughters to work the street on their knees.</p>

</blockquote>

<p><br />Can you back up any of this? Or are you rehearsing a speech for a Dickens book?</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Can you back up any of this?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Picateers is the first thing that comes to mind for me. Their business model is based on "volunteers" doing all of the shooting in it's entirety. I'm sure the quality was top notch and it's why they are the top of their game today. <em>/sarcasm</em></p>

<blockquote>

<p>Picateers is the first thing that comes to mind... ...I'm sure the quality was top notch and it's why they are the top of their game today. <em>/sarcasm</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>This isn't going to go over well then...</p>

<p>http://venturebeat.com/2008/05/21/picateers-disrupts-school-portrait-market-with-web-20-tactics/</p>

<p>John, your link is from 2008. Here's something from 2010. http://www.virtualbackgrounds.net/backgrounder/backgrounder-february10.html</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Picateers has closed down, at least for now. You may have only heard about Picateers through <em>The Backgrounder</em>. It is (was) a California company with millions and millions of dollars in investment capital. Their first round of investment capital was as much as $5.5 million. They probably got more money after that. <br /><br /> Picateers was going to show that it is no longer necessary to hire a professional photographer to do school photography. They urged school principals and superintendents to identify photo savvy parents and relatives to sign on to actually shoot the school photography using their own digital cameras and send the files to Picateers to handle the online ordering and printing. Picateers returned 50% of the sales to the school as a fund raiser. Initially, they seemed to be successful. Most of the so-called photographers worked as volunteers. At this point, it has been announced that Picateers is shut down. <br /><br /><strong>Maybe the public is starting to realize that there is more to professional photography than a digital camera and point and shoot. We hope this is happening.</strong></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Picateers catch line was "Who takes better pictures than a mom?".</p>

<p>There's no love lost between myself and Lifetouch. I worked in a Lifetouch studio for a few months, and it was among the worst jobs I've ever held. Too few hours, and too low of wages, to pay for the costs of transporting myself back and forth to work. Plus a manager who wouldn't create the weekly schedules until Sunday night, leaving everybody hanging up until the last second, unable to plan their week ahead.</p>

<p>With that disclaimer out of the way.... I'm not prepared to skewer Lifetouch for this yearbook plan. The photos taken by parents of their children doing school activities, would not have much salability beyond that particular school. Any parent who wanted to opt out of donating their photos to the yearbook, can do so. </p>

<p>But if you, as a photographer, have some shots that are suitable for the yearbook - what could you do with them instead of donating them to the school? Try to sell copies to the other parents? That would likely come across as rather tacky.</p>

<p>A somewhat similar situation occurred for me this past summer. I guided a raft through the Grand Canyon, as part of a non-commercial, private-party, un-guided trip. 10 people, all of us comfy on rock, in water, and outdoors. About half of us very skilled with cameras, and we were shooting a LOT. 3-4 of us, including myself, agreed in the Canyon to share all our photos with the group. It was a great decision. I gave a lot, but I also got a lot in return. The photos aren't of interest beyond our little group. It went very much against my first reaction, ie, to sell work. But it was the right decision for me.</p>

Why are parents doing photos for a yearbook?

 

Our yearbooks were shot by students, except for the portraits, and those were submitted by the students or their

photographers. All the filler and fluff stuff was produced by the yearbook students, the school paper students, and

student submitted(like club representatives).

 

Parents or pros shouldn't be doing that stuff for kids(unless they are a special Ed school or something).

<blockquote>

<p> John, your link is from 2008. Here's something from 2010.</p>

</blockquote>

<p> Bitter news for Dean Takahashi.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Our yearbooks were shot by students</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Same here. The portraits were the assembly line in front of the screen type thing but the rest were black and whites shot by yearbook students interested in photography Overall the images were pretty good. Way better than typical snapshots. Near the end of the year all the prints that were made, mostly images that never made it to the year book, were put on a table free for the taking. There were a huge amount and most people got a few or so to take home. No concern whatsoever about copyright or payment in anyone's mind. Many moons later some are appearing again on facebook.</p>

<p>No word on the negatives.</p>

<p>Looking at it from the perspective of Lifetouch, what happens when they promise credit and somebody makes a mistake? I don't imagine that Lifetouch *needs* the rights outlined, but that certainly makes the process simpler for them. I also imagine there are plenty of parents that are willing to contribute their snapshots.</p>

<p>What age group are we talking about? I would assume elementary or middle school. I don't remember those being created by my fellow classmates at that age. :)</p>

<p>Eric</p>

<p>Like John and Richard - My yearbook candid photos where shot by students who were interested in photography - we didn't care that we worked long hours, got some credit and no real "pay" (other than occasional thank you and free meal) - </p>

<p>In my district they are targeting this at the elementary school level - although the word is that they will move to Middle School and High School if this is successful. </p>

<p>I have no problem donating some images or work for the yearbook - provided that the images are used ONLY for the yearbook and not for Lifetouch Marketing or sale on stock sites - and that proper credit is given. </p>

<p>However, this is not the case - they (Lifetouch) say in the fine print that if you submit a photo via their site - you are assigning all rights to the photo to them and that they may use it in any manner they see fit - including marketing, promotion, sales, etc... and that they (Lifetouch) will not credit individual photographers. </p>

<p>So if you submit an image of kids in a particularly good moment, and it goes on to become the center of a multi-million dollar ad campaign, you get no money, no credit, no referrals, no nothing...In fact you can't even claim ownership of the image - because you've given it to Lifetouch. </p>

<p>That my friends is what has my undies in a bunch - again - with tweaking this could be a good thing - change it to a limited usage release, for yearbook use only, and give a credit in the back of the yearbook to the parents / photographers who submit images. Not that tough to do... </p>

<p>Dave</p>

<p>Dave,</p>

<p>Why don't you contact Lifetouch and suggest to them what you've suggested above? A limited-rights usage agreement, which might flush more participation from skilled photo-parents.</p>

<p>Edit: The people in corporate at Lifetouch are good people, even if my experience at the studio level didn't impress me any. Mentioning it because they may actually listen.</p>

<p>Dave I for one can see your point. The question is what to do about it? Maybe as Doug says you can contact Lifetouch and see if they can be reasoned with. Maybe a lot of people should contact Lifetouch and see if they can be reasoned with.</p>

<p>I'd personally be OK with no credits for in yearbook pics (that would be a hell of a list and typos and missed or misplaced names would be likely) but would want to see at least credit to advertisement images. I'd also want to keep ownership to anything submitted, giving permission to use the image for the yearbook.</p>

<p>Dan</p>

<blockquote>

<p>However, this is not the case - they (Lifetouch) say in the fine print that if you submit a photo via their site - you are assigning all rights to the photo to them and that they may use it in any manner they see fit - including marketing, promotion, sales, etc... and that they (Lifetouch) will not credit individual photographers.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That does change things and my mind on the validity of this topic. I didn't know school yearbook publishing had gotten this corporatized, trendy and fashionable compared to my experience back in the '70's.</p>

<p>Things DO change.</p>

It's a yearbook. They're asking parents, who are mostly not pro photographers, to donate any shots that might make it

into a yearbook. How are they supposed to pay? A yearbook has hundreds of photos, is a very small print run and

costs dozens of dollars. There's no economy in it.

 

I think you just need to take this at face value. It's not some rights grab (there's no value in those photos outside the

yearbook context) and not every request for photos is a sinister attack on your rights.

<p>If you don't want to contribute to your child's yearbook then don't. Although the yearbook manufacturers may be more involved now than years past - when the school journalism / yearbook staff assembled the yearbook, then sent it off- it is still just a yearbook.</p>

<p>I donate images without a second thought. Work is work, an image I take of my kid playing rugby is not. I do not attach the same emotional connection to its creation or restrictions to its usage that I do to work product. Truth be told I could really care less.</p>

<p>Mr. L…</p>

<p>“(there's no value in those photos outside the yearbook context)” </p>

<p>If so, why are they demanding exclusive rights rather than shared rights? </p>

<p>A. T. Burke</p>

<p>I would rather have parents shoot the kids at school than Lifetouch. And I did contribute to my son's yearbook a number of times and never once signed an agreement or cared. If someone wanted to buy it from me, I couldn't find it. I think this is a lot of whining about nothing.</p>

<p>A.T. - I'd have to see the specific language, and whether it means that Lifetouch just gains the rights to do whatever they want with it or whether you also agree that <em>only</em> they get the rights (can't use it yourself, give it to the school for their publications, etc.) If it's the first thing, that seems fine, if it's the second, I wouldn't give them anything.</p>

<p>This fairly one-sided sort of agreement makes it possible for Lifetouch to accept and use parent submissions and reduces or eliminates their risk of some parent having a snit because the school staff mislabeled some photos and Lifetouch being blamed. It also allows them to carry the book around as a sample for other schools to see how some of the products come out. Our year books, the last section was comprised of "dedications" paid for by the parents for quarter, half, full pages, etc., with parent supplied images. Some of it was ghastly. So some "pro" sees his name credited for page 254 and he really did 245 and now he's outraged that his professional image and name has been besmirched. They don't need the grief nor does the school. They have enough trouble worrying about kids sneaking in lewd or otherwise unacceptable comments, gropes, gang signs and the like. </p>