How to credit photo for textbook

[rwbowman]

<p>As an amateur photographer, I did some free photography of the objects in the collection of a local museum. The photographs were used, with credit to me, in museum publications and on their website. A well-known publisher has queried the museum director about using one of the photographs in an upcoming textbook with a run of 99K copies. Both the museum director and I want to include both my name and the name of the museum with the photo. For what it's worth, the photo is in Lightroom with some metadata. At the time, with no real thought, I used the copyright field with " Robert Bowman, All Rights Reserved" entered in.<br>

I would very much appreciate any guidance any of you can give!</p>

[rwbowman]

<p>A related question: should the museum expect payment for use of the photo, and if so, what would be a ballpark amount to request?</p>

[john_h.1]

<blockquote>

<p>A related question: should the museum expect payment for use of the photo, and if so, what would be a ballpark amount to request?</p>

</blockquote>

<p> Did you effectively transfer copyright ownership or third party licensing to the museum allowing for such payments to it? If so, then yes if it wishes to be paid. If, not, then no.<br /><br /><br>

Another related question, should YOU expect payment? Assuming you did not execute one of those transactions or give the museum a license to allow third party free use, then the proposed use in a completely separate entity's textbook is beyond the scope of the license you provided the museum. The question becomes whether others should use your imagery for free also.</p>

[danmarchant]

<p>You didn't tell us what country you are in. Laws differ in different countries. However, in general, if you are not an employee, not being paid (so not a contractor) and did not sign an agreement that gave away your copyright, then the images belong to you. You are granting the museum a license to use the images in the way you specifically agreed and that is the only right they have in the images. Unless you specifically agreed that they could do whatever they want with the images then they don't have the right to sub-license the images to the book publisher, don't have any right to decide how the images are credited and don't have any right to any monies paid by the publisher.</p>

[rwbowman]

<p>Thanks for your replies.<br>

I am in the United States. I retain the copyright at this point and have not granted the museum a license. Whatever the publisher would pay I want to come to the museum as a donation; I don't want to give it away. For what it's worth, the image is of a natural history object of some rarity—for example, there are no photos of the object in the Getty collection. Also, the publisher is very well-known, and the image would be used in a textbook with a proposed run of 99K copies.<br>

Robert</p>

 

[john_h.1]

<blockquote>

<p>I retain the copyright at this point and have not granted the museum a license.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Allowing the museum use the image is, itself, granting a license. I'm not sure what publishers of this sort are willing to pay, if anything but given that it is not a image commonly available, they may play ball a bit. It may not be tactically sound but you can ask them to make an offer to pay you or maybe to the museum donation fund as a designee. <br /><br /><br /></p>

<p><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>

[craig_shearman1]

<p>"Whatever the publisher would pay I want to come to the museum as a donation; I don't want to give it away"<br /><br />Whatever your relationship might be with the museum, a textbook publisher is a business, a big business. They would not give you one of their textbooks for free and you should not give them one of your photos for free. Look up the ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers) guidelines on what to charge for a textbook photo -- it varies with size printed (full page, quarter page, 1/8 page etc) and number of copies of the book printed, etc. Quote the publisher that price.<br /><br />Once you get paid by the publisher, it's up to you whether to keep the money or pass it along to the museum as a donation. But since you own the picture, the museum is not in a position to sell/license it to the publisher or to accept payment from the publisher. The transaction is between you and the publisher.</p>