Guest Blog: Luceo Images, Legal Strategies

This is the final guest blog post from Luceo Images, a year-old collective of young photographers. For a full introduction to the collective, please see the first post in the series, here.

[Editor’s note: This blog is not intended to be used as a substitute for legal advice. Please consult an attorney for any legal questions you may have.]

Collectives pose a couple of interesting legal challenges when it comes to squaring the workings of the organization with the realities faced by our individual photographers. We must be flexible enough to allow each photographer to handle their own separate businesses, but also cohesive enough in our mission to achieve our collective marketing and professional goals.

In our case, each photographer deals directly with their clients in contracting, negotiating, and billing, with most of the collaborative effort centered on marketing and other group work. What that means is that each Luceo photographer has chosen a business model that is best suited for his or her particular needs with the collective uniting us under a common brand. The photographer’s choice of business structure is largely related to tax and liability concerns, and Luceo is set up to complement the photographer’s core administrative tasks rather than replace them. 

For example, our photographers handle their own contracting but benefit from legal feedback on the specific moving parts of the document. We are fortunate that one of our photographers is also a lawyer. Having him to translate the legalese in some of the bigger commercial and editorial contracts gives us an advantage in negotiating because we get a firm grip on pieces of the deal that should be changed, trading off on aspects that are less important to the photographer. At the core is the idea that a photographer has an interest in future resale of their images, making copyright, licensing, and royalties among the most important aspect of any negotiation. Contracts that grab these rights can often be negotiated by trading off on other elements that may be important to the client, things like price, timeframe, quantity, embargo period, language about exclusivity, photo credits and photographer features, indemnity, jurisdiction, and a variety of other points that can be tweaked to ensure both the client and the photographer get a fair deal. 

The language of copyright and fair use can also be tricky, especially in the digital age where a photograph can be copied thousands of times and used for as many applications.  Among the small number of infringements that we’ve experienced, having legal advice and an internal strategy to deal with them has been invaluable. For example, a photographer recently experienced problems with an online magazine that had used his images without compensation, credit, or notice. Having a comprehensive strategy to pursue the infringement backed up with the proper tools afforded by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Copyright Act helped resolve the situation in a matter of hours.

Previous Luceo Images guest blogs:
“Getting Started,” on the group’s executive structure.
“Collective Marketing,” on how collaboration maximizes marketing opportunities
“Lowering Overhead,” on how different skill sets help collectives keep projects in-house

Comments

[Elaina]

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Elaina

http://www.freearticletrove.com

[Ann]

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Ann

http://racingonlinegames.net