Max Spielmann copying my photographs..where do I stand?

[mr tommo]

My dad has run a local photography business for 15 years now. We do studio work, commercial, nursery photographs and school photographs.

Last night a customer called us to tell us that she saw another of our customers in Max Spielmann, taking photographs that she had bought from us from her childs nursery (the photos were still in our logo'd mounts) and asked the member of staff if she could make a canvas by scanning one of our photos.

They told her this was fine and would be a 1 hour wait. This lady didn't want to wait and asked for Max Spielmann to can and print duplicates of her orders, they happily oblidged.

Now we rewarded our customer that told us about this incident with gift vouchers and immediately called this Max spielmann who told me over the phone that they did not need to ask my permission to copy these photographs.

Obviously I know this is incorrect as many places such as Asda have called us in the past asking for permission to use the photos even on mugs and birthday cakes.

I called head office of max spielmann who told us that they were wrong to copy the photographs and I'm just in the process of writing out a complaint to their head office. After this phone call to HQ, the local branch had contacted thier are manager, who then called me stating that I was totally wrong and they did not need permission/copyright.

What should be my next course of action? I've told the local store that we will be doing spot checks on them in the future but they were fairly rude and dismissive about the issue.

It's not a big deal and our 6x4's and 8x6's are only £6-£8 each so its not about the amount of money, its principle. We take photos at over 120 nurseries/schools do if all our customers ordered one photo and got numerous prints done at places like Max Spielmann -who openly dismissed rules, we'd be out of business.

Sorry for the long post,
Tom

 

[mr tommo]

We own the copyright. For some commercial work we sell the photos and copyright and this is pre-agreed with a signed letter.

 

[mr tommo]

What about changing your business model so this wouldn't be an issue in future. Say, charge up front for your services so you can make a living and then hand them the files to do as they wish, negating the whole problem.

You can still offer prints of course but that would be an additional fee to cover your costs and make a profit there also.

Otherwise I can imagine that you'd spend so much time chasing places it would drive you bonkers.

This shouldn't be the way things are but it's basically going to be impossible to stop and takes you away from doing what you do from what I can see.

As from Jan we will be offering a CD - including copyright to our nursery customers. It will however be priced above all of our other packages. The problem is with nurseries is that you get many people who want to only spend £6 for example. So we still need to offer the printing option. We also get people ordering canvas', montages etc spending hundreds.

so drop it then.
i am currently going through this with a key designer that is being a total psychopath regarding her crappy art work that we used once out of the original remit .
its frustrating, a waste of time for everyone involved etc etc.

heaven forbid people want to reproduce/blow up an image of their kid my god.

Its about professionalism. We have never reproduced another photographers work without contacting them first and getting written permission. Its not fair and its illegal. Why on earth companies who are suposed to be profession on the high street are above these laws is really quite annoying.

Its not a waste of time, We've got the booking at the nursery, sent a photographer out for the day with all the kit, spend days sorting orders and taking payments, paid the nursery commission for allowing us to take photos and then we lose out because a high street shop can't follow copyright laws?

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert but if you retain the copyright to these (and don't give it to the customer) then you shouldn't you be writing something a bit more stern than a complaint? What they're doing is theft and you should be making them aware of that. Also, isn't the customer who's getting them reproduced also breaking your copyright?

Thats the reason for starting this thread, think trading standards are probably the correct place to call next but I'm not totally sure?

 

[mr tommo]

I can't offer advice, other then the obvious of getting proper legal advice from a solicitor..

I would hope it's wrong legally!

Out of interest, how much goes to the school? I've done some fund raising shoots (kid with Santa) for pre-schools, I raised £500-£700 on each shoot of approx 80-100 kids (Not 1/3 of a school) and had that been budgetted professionally, 2 hours of 'tog time and 2 hours of admin, at £50 per hour, plus print costs, it all comes to less then £300, it seemed to leave a 100% profit margin even with very low print prices, £2 for a 6x4, and +50p for each size up you went, or £10 for the original image + 2 6x4's, lets just say most wanted the original image..

I asked how much they (the school) get from the normal school photo's (assumed some kickback), and surprisingly they seemed to say it was 'nothing'.. but I can't believe that..

With schools, we are just starting getting into them. Previously our printing for nurseries had all been to studio standard on our Epson photo printers, but we've invested in a Fuji dry lab and it means we can reduce printing costs and speed up printing dramatically so that Schools will be a doddle now.

Expect schools to take anywhere between 10-20% of total sales. Or they may want to work on a per child pay structure.

 

[mr tommo]

Daft question (I might be miss-understanding this)...

How are Max Spielmann going to know if you have sold copyright to your customer or not? If they (MS) ask their customer if they have the right to copy your photo and the customer says yes, what else can MS do to check?

Maybe thats where some confirmation is needed with regards the law. Unless they get the customer to sign a disclaimer to put the blame on them?

I just know that we try to contact the photographer ourselves at all times and have turned down plenty of printing working because the photographer wasn't aware that the customer was getting the work printed. Many times we've been called by Asda, Tesco and boots to get permission before they print the work. Sometimes we've allowed it if its just to use on mugs, cakes and T-shirts etc.

EDIT : @ Gaffer - Certainly won't be contacting the customer. Thats not good for business in the slightest, I'd just expect MS to be professional when it comes to such matters and to not break copyright law. I'm starting to think they will get their customers to sign a disclaimer but IMO they have a duty to act professionally.

 

[mr tommo]

That's not a bad idea actually. I'm sure our new printer can do a custom backprint. Thanks I'll look into that.

 

[mr tommo]

Definitely looking into the backprinting on the photos asap.

Spoke to trading standards, who didn't have a problem with us going into MS and doing spot checks. So like the above we will be going in for proof. Its difficult enough to try and run a business selling what is essentially luxuries in this current economic situation, without other companies making it harder for you by acting illegally.

Our CD with copyright is likely to be around the £50 mark with 5 images included, when we introduce it in January.

I don't mean to come across as stamping my feet for a few pounds, its more the principle than anything. I detest the prices some companies require a parent to pay for some school photos. You usually have to buy a package with 3 million useless photographs, keyrings, wallet photos, bookmarks etc just to get the image you want.

We don't work like that, we offer discounted packs but we also offer the parent to just walk away with spending just £6. Thats a 300% discount to our studio price because we operate on a low margin, high volume structure with the nurseries and to have other companies ripping off our work after all the effort that goes into taking that photo and everything that goes into it is rather frustrating.

Big companies like Asda can run strict rules regarding copyright law, and call a small photography studio in town to check copyright, but MS feel they are exempt from that.

I probably just sounds like I'm moaning over £6 here but its really frustrating because as a photographer you see the work that goes into that £6 photograph.

 

[mr tommo]

Scougar is quite right, people will try to make additional copies, but there is a world of difference between a parent who has purchased a picture making an additional copy at home with say a scanner and an inkjet and a commercial company making the copies and charging for them. They're both infringements however.

The parent has more than likely paid the OP's company. The company who infringes on the copyright is leaching off the OP.

I would ask to speak to someone from your local trading standards in person. Trading Standards are quick enough to get people arrested and seizing goods when it comes to counterfeit CD's and other forgeries and this is no different. Perhaps they will set up a 'test' purchase of a copy of one of your images and you might pursuade them to run an article in the local press about it.

Yeah, I understand that people will scan the photographs at home if they have the equipment and to be honest I don't (unofficially) mind that. It's also illegal but they've paid for our services in the first place and the chances are the quality of something they come out with from their home printer isn't going to be great anyway.

Like you have pointing out its the fact that MS are making money from our photography service. I mean they physically took the photograph from the customer, took it out of OUR mount with our company name on the front of the mount and then scanned it to make themselves a few quid.

Waiting for trading standards to get back in touch now. I'm not sure I'd like to use the local press as I wouldn't want to come across badly. I think if I was to put this argument forward to some of the more simple minded people around, they wouldn't see a problem with getting it printed due to their lack of knowledge about copyright so I feel that might have a negative effect. Obviously most people know what goes into making said photography.

At the end of the day MS are there to provide a public printing service for holiday snaps and amatuers, not to make a few quid scanning professional photographers work.

I'll keep you all updated.

 

[mr tommo]

I've said theres no chance of me chasing the customer. Its bad business practice and will only harm our reputation. But...if theres any chance that I can see that this doesn't happen again with MS, I will. If that involves getting trading standards involved (which seeing as they have said they are free to copy work without permission) then so be it.

 

[mr tommo]

Ignore the local shop and the area manager, they are idiots. Only deal with the head office, get a managers name there and only speak to them.

Tell them that you have been informed, and rather rudely so, by the area manager and the local branch that you are wrong and you feel they need informing of the correct process to stop any further issues.

I would also demand an apology from the area manager, and request they have a sign up in the shop stating that unless the customer owns copyright of an image or printing rights that they will not be able to copy them.

Try and keep as much of your communication done via email or letter so you have written proof of everything. Record phone calls as well if you can.

Unfortunately, it is the nature of our business. Those people saying "get your business processes sorted" obviously do not understand that copying will, and always will go on no matter what steps you take.

Other things you can do include stamping the back of the photos (or use labels) stating that "it is an offence to copy this photo in anyway" and a contact number.

I wish like you said this whole thing was dealt with via email because they would have totally set themselves up for a fall if what they said on the phone was in an email. Everything will be dealt with via email/letters now

so you going to local underfunded schools and offering them money so you can go in and disrupt a schoolday

Totally their choice. We don't force them to have us. Most parents would be disappointed if they didn't have a photo of their child at nursery/school.

so that you can exploit the parent/child bond to make a profit, then you are complaining that someone else is exploiting your work to also make a profit based on copyright laws that are so out of date they a joke.

Exploit the parent by offering them photos of their child WITH NO OBLIGATION TO BUY? Come on get real.

I take it you have no experience of business? The schools set aside dates for photographs every year. Or did you think its only the "underfunded exploited nursery/schools" that have annual photos done?

 

[mr tommo]

*sigh*. It's not theft. It's (maybe) copyright infringment, assuming the customer doesn't own the copyright.



Wow.



There's a number of different approaches here. Sure, the principle is important, but you're a business. Every penny you spend on fighting this has to be worth it to your bottom line. It's pointless to spend hours/days and hundreds of pounds (if you get lawyers involved) on something where the total theoretical cost to you is only in the tens of pounds range. Unfortunately, companies break the law all the time, they just treat the implications and probably of being caught as another risk of doing business.

Personally, I'd probably leave it where you've got to and move on. If it were more systematic and widespread, I'd absolutely pursue it, but for an isolated incident, it's probably not worth your time. Just my 2p

I'd just be happy in the knowledge that I've been in touch with HQ, made my feelings known and threaten them with further action so that they can contact their local branches and make them away of the copyright problems. I don't intend for this to cost us any money other than to know that the next time this happens they think twice and act accordingly.

Mr tommo, I'd post in the TP business forum. You'll get responses from people who have dealt with it before. http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=43

Will do that this weekend mate thank you. Never used TP forums before so I'll get signed up

well from talking to my uni friends who work/are married to people who work in schools 1 runs a private nursery 2 work in primary schools, 4 work in secondary schools (2 are dept heads) and one is a headmaster, the one thing they all complain about id funding. so you dont think that when the headmaster is looking at the schools budget he doesnt think to him/her self mmm schools photos made a nice sum of money last year lets do it again




again (talking to my friends) i've yet to hear one of them say, "shame there was no schools photos this year" indeed parents love seeing there children in photos of their schools uniforms every time i walk pass a studio the window is full of portraits of chrildren in school uniforms . truth is most parents don't care, they buy them because they send home and they feel bad if they didn't buy something (after all who want to say to their children "sorry but you too ugly to buy a photo of you" or "yes i know your friends are getting the photo but we too poor to buy them"



yes i know they do that ive had to buy enough photos to know they do it every year that doesn't alter the fact that it disrupts the teaching it just means it disrupted every year, that around 12 days in a school life time, you try going to a school and telling them you taking your children out of school for 12 days and see what they say



ooo some one not agreeing with you so they must have no experience
i will assume you mean The business (meaning the photography business)
and you right i don't run a photography business, the business i do run only uses a studio for the photos for the catalogues we do, the advertising posters we do, the flyers, and so on

It's not about the schools making a packet. Out of interest how much does your friend earn that runs a nursery school, from letting a photographer in? I'll guess at between £75-£150. Hardly a money making exercise is it?

Again with nurseries, when you think that our customers avergage spend is many multiples of the £6 6"x4" that we offer as our cheapest optiion. Does that sound like people genuinely feel oblidged to have them incase the kid thinks they are ugly?

Not got time to reply to the rest and I totally disagree with most of what you are saying