Hi all, one question I'd love to hear your thoughts on. We all love to see those great shots printed in the likes of sky at night magazine , sky & telescope, astronomy magazine etc. to name but a few, but here is my problem

I took a lovely shot of Venus passing the Pleiades the other night and I submitted it to the hotshots gallery in sky at night magazine for possible publication. They replied back by stating that you grant them perpetual, royalty free rights to your shot for ever more - ok, some people don't mind that - but - they will not consider publication of your shot if you send or post it anywhere else. We all work hard for our shots, does this mean you cannot show it anywhere else ever again?

I'm sure some of us here have done submitted our shots in the past, and it seems now that many magazines have adopted this policy, which I think is now very restrictive. Does this mean I cannot even share this here? Do you agree with it? or is it just plain greedy?

Keith.

Hi Keith

Personally, I don't agree with this policy, you should retain all the copyrights to the image.

I believe that by handing over all the rights the magazine then has the right to do whatever it likes with your image, even sell it on to another company, how would you feel if your beautiful image appears on the advertisement for a large multi-national such as Microsoft or Coca-Cola? The magazine gets the money and you get nothing.

This seems to be a trend that is common place, there is a free site in Ireland that allows you to sell goods, they recently ran a photography competition with the same conditions, you give up all rights, this did not apply to just the winner, but to all entries. I posted comments on the site pointing out what I said in the above paragraph and they refused to print it.

Keep your images and post them in all the free astronomy websites around the world and get the appreciation for your work.

Paul

from my experience,
S@N are the most restrictive and give you nothing for submission.
Not even a copy of the mag.
IMO - thats poor.

S&T make you sign a 2 page contract but at least give you
cash and a copy of the mag.

Astronomy mag are very difficult to submit to I found.
Having to send huge files via a buggy submission app on the site.

Astronomy Now are by far the best to deal with.
They promptly send you a cheque and a few copys of the mag.
Plus they retain your shots and if they use them again they
pay you again and send a copy also.
They also let you know they are going to use the image, something the others
dont do and unless you go check you could miss it.

As for each publishers policy on copyright.
Weather you agree with it or not is irrelevant.
If you submit the image then you are agreeing with it.
If you dont agree, dont submit!

Most mags will expect you to only submit your image to one publisher.
You cant blame them really to be fair.
It might be nice for you to have the same shot printed in 4 mags in the one month
but it looks bad for each of them and is boering for the readers to see the same shots
again and again.
one thing to also bear in mind is competitions like astro photographer of the year.
The rules state your image can not have been published before anywhere
so if you think you have a winner dont submit it to the monthly mags,!
Also, if your freaked about copyright. You better check Facebook,
they own your image when you post it! Read the fine print!

personally, When i started out it was a nice buzz to see your shot in print.
These days - not that ive much free time anymore for astrophotography -
its a handy way to get a free mag and some dosh to boot.

I see your opinions guys, I'm actually surprised that this has not been discussed before. Put it this way, I am wondering if I could post my shot on my own flickr page, after all, it is not a magazine, it is free to all for viewing and should'nt compete with a published shot as it's not advertised.

Although at the risk of sounding silly, I'm sure their submission agreement covers this as they would probably have every avenue tied up. I'll go and have alook for it on their site to see about this, but I think I too will stay away in future.

Keith.

I have had a look at their terms and conditions -

14. The permission you have granted to us is not exclusive and therefore you may continue to use the user Contribution in any way in any medium, including allowing others to use it, provided such use does not interfere with or impair the rights you have granted to us.

It looks like I can put it on my flickr page

Keith.

Its an interesting state of affairs alright.

I guess the imagers fundamental decision is how much control do you want to keep as regards your images? If the answer is "as much as possible" then I guess that rules out certain publications. You may be happy enough to relinquish some/all control for special purposes such as competitions. I think Mick O'Connell may have gone through this last year with his stunning moon image.

But bear this in mind - much of today's media is published on-line. Whilst a lot of people still buy printed media, I would say a lot would get the bulk of their "news" online. Therefore, if you make you media available online, a lot of people are still bound to see it, especially if you advertise it on forums like this.

For the sake of a couple a quid and possibly a free mag - possibly nothing at all as Frank points out, I'd personally not relinquish any rights to any of my images. But then again, I'm not a professional photographer trying to scratch a living put of it.

And actually, if you look at my site, I've no problem with folks using any of my images for nowt as long as it is not-for-profit. Even for-profit orgs can use my images as long as they display my copyright tag and out of courtesy, let me know. Even better of they chuck me a free copy of whatever it is in

I'd be interested to hear Anthony's views. As an accomplished and much published imager, I know he has been through this before and made comments here on this site. Calling Greece!

One final thing - I'm prettry sure there are websites out there who gladly "publish" images but do not ask you to relinquish rights - APOD springs to mind.

Cheers
Dave

I have no problem giving free use of an image to someone or something you believe in or wish to help with, I do not think you should have to give away the right of use in perpetuity to a entity that, let's be honest, is using your work to sell magazines and make a profit. Unfortunately when you publish anything that ends up on a website you are really giving it to the world to use, it's pretty much impossible to stop people using it with or without relevent credit. Don't quote me on the wording but as far as I know any image you upload to Face Book you are by implication giving them any and all rights to do whatever they so wish with the material, to me this is just a company taking advantage of people wanting to share their images with others. Maybe it's time for people stand up for themselves and be alot more discerning about who they let use their property and insist that the effort, resources, and talent that go into it be recognised and ownership credited. There are not too many of these magazines that give you or anyone else much for free.

My two cents worth for what it's worth

As long as you put it on a website and include copyright verbage, as far as I know, that's pretty much done and dusted. Of course, it doesn;t prevent people ripping off you image. But I believe if they do, you then have the right to pursue them for damages.

Personally, I publish my images to my own website so I have full control over the copyright verbage I use. There may be thrid-party websitesites who would allo folks to do the same - I don't know.

For the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Picassa etc ad nauseum, if you were publishing images on those sites, the only advice I would give is to read the T&C's.

For my own site, I write my own T&C's

Hey,
Sky and telescope are generous compared to other mags when it comes to images.
As for sky@night magazine, I cant see them persuing you if you used an image you submitted elsewhere, I'd like to see them try. :devil: its hardly worth their time.

I use flickr for images, saves me the hassle or maintaining a website, and I use it for linking images in facebook and here, I wouldnt upload any images these days directly into the backhole that is facebook.

dmcdona wrote:

I'd be interested to hear Anthony's views. As an accomplished and much published imager, I know he has been through this before and made comments here on this site. Calling Greece!

One final thing - I'm prettry sure there are websites out there who gladly "publish" images but do not ask you to relinquish rights - APOD springs to mind.

Cheers
Dave

Gents,

I am fortunate to have had my work appear in over 90 magazines and also over 90 books and where I have acquired a LOT of experience in this regard.

The issue with S@N is something which is best described as being off the bell curve and for all the wrong reasons. More specifically, all of the reasons mentioned above are valid, for they want and expect total future access to your submitted images and with them being in full control. You also receive no honorarium when your work is indeed used (first time or otherwise) and certainly no advance notice that it will be appearing is such and such an issue. To this end, I stopped submitting material to S@N MANY MANY MANY moons ago! That said, the next issue will feature me and one of my images in a special article they will feature (Best of the Best) and where I was asked to participate.

In relation to Astronomy Now, they were precisely the opposite to S@N. At one time I was informed to kindly not submit material since it was "too professional" and simply had work appear whenever a request came from them and/or if they used some of my work for magazine articles. However, last year I had two images published and they never sent me the complementary 10 GBP check for either image and the associated sample issue (I have had a multi-yr subsciption with them for some time). I sent then an email in December reminding them that two of my images appeared and no honorarium was received. I did not receive a reply and a couple of months thereafter I did not renew my subscription!

Sky&Telescope and Astronomy Magazine in the US are very professional. They will use your photos and will pay for the publication rights without any restrictive clauses or exclusions. If there are two magazines I will always deal with, it is these two on the basis of their behaviour involving my work.

In general, very few magazines pay for images used and only one will demand that it has not been submitted elsewhere (namely, S@N).

In relation to NASA APOD, each and every image used as an APOD is accompanied by a Copyright and Credit qualifier below the image. To this end, there is NO excuse for copyright violation. I nailed Popular Science last year for lifting a photo of mine off NASA APOD and using it in one of their online articles. To add insult to injury, they credited NASA as the source and copyright holder. Within 24 hours, I had the matter resolved very nicely in my favour including a $125 payment.

As for copyright, ALL material is copyrighted and irrespective if a copyright statement appears on the image itself or the webpage where the image is presented. Anyone wishing to use your work must (1) request permission to do so and (2) credit your work. Simply lifting your work and properly crediting it is NOT sufficient and still makes them liable for copyright violation. Just to give you an idea, I have a major US publisher on the run who has been using my work incessantly between 2005 and 2012 (41 copyright violations in total across various titles and editions thereof) who did credit the work properly at the back of each book title BUT never sought permission to use it. (chee-ching!)

In relation to damages, generally one is liable for both statutory and punitive damages with a slight exception being the US. For the latter (ie. US), one is liable for statutory damages only if work has its copyright violated and which means the guilty party is only liable for the amount which would have been paid anyway if advance permission had been sought. In other words, there is nothing to lose by the violator (if caught) since their greatest exposure is paying the amount which would have been applicable up-front anyways ... from this, one can extract that it is in their favour to violate copyright since one can get away without payment and only pay what would have been the case if and when caught. All of this changes, however, if work is registered with the US Copyright Office and were suddenly both statutory damages (as per the above) and punitive damages now come into play. Under this scenario, it is easy for a single violation to command many thousands of dollars.

Things elsewhere and Europe as an example are much more strict, for we have both statutory and punitive damages applicable. For example, Focus Magazine (Italy) used some of my work without permission both in print (their magazine) as well as online. Once I discovered this unauthorized use of my work, I looked after the matter with the help of a lawyer and this matter was once again settled nicely in my favour.

Always remember that your work is automatically protected for copyright and only you can allow others permission to use it. If they use it without your permission (with or without proper credit) constitutes copyright violation. It makes no difference if we are talking about a magazine (print or digital), a book publisher, online website (ex. magazine), blog etc.

Something I should mention is the term "ancillary use". When receiving an email requesting permission to use your work, you will often receive something of the form "we would like to use your photo in TITLE-SO-AND-SO, present and all future editions, all associated ancillary uses, national and international editions, multimedia and digital formats etc etc" .... do NOT make the mistake to agree to these terms since they are asking for a complete blank check as to when, where and how the photo is used. Only allow use for the publication of interest (ex. "Ryan's Astronomy for Dummies, 4th Edition, 2012, UK market, ISBN: 000-0-00000-0"). Once you have established a price for your photo (ex. $400), inform them that a 20% mark-up is applicable for international rights and another 20% mark-up for ancillary use (such as ebooks, sample online chapters, teacher's notes etc). Pricing is dependent on use (ex. cover or simply within the magazine/book), print size (ex. 1/4 page), circulation (ex. 75,000 copies of the book) and the aforementioned international circulation (+20%) and ancillary use (another +20%).

If I can assist with anything else, please let me know!

Anthony.

For my Irish buddies:

The 10 Rules Of US Copyright Infringement

www.jeremynicholl.com/blog/2011/06/13/th...yright-infringement/

Defining published and unpublished?

asmp.org/tutorials/published-or-unpublished.html

10 Big Myths about copyright explained .... MUST READ

www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

Top 10 Myths About Copyright

www.publishlawyer.com/top10.htm

Myths about Copyright

www.thecopyrightsite.org/myths/index.html

Top Ten Myths of Copyright, Plus One

www.pixiq.com/article/top-ten-myths-of-copyright-plus-one

Facebook ... a hornet's nest awaiting a massive lawsuit!

We all know how photos are used and abused on Facebook given the ease with which a user can circulate material. Since these violations are occurring on Facebook's servers, they (Facebook) are technically liable.

I have had people's accounts closed down my Facebook since they repeatedly violated copyright. Facebook makes very clear references to copyright violation and they will respond immediately when notified of a copyright violation. To this end, if you see your photo (or that of a friend) being used, especially and typically without even the courtesy of a "Source:" statement, do everyone a huge favour and contact Facebook if your photo is involved or notify your friend if the photo involved is theirs.

In relation to Facebook having free access to all of your work, I have two comments to make in this regard: (1) I researched the common belief that Facebook has access to all of your work since it is on their servers but they (Facebook) explicitly state that your work is indeed your work and noone else can use it (if you can locate something to the contrary in their User Agreement, by all means let me/us know) and (2) Facebook has used user preferences to market third-party ads (ex. Frank Ryan likes British Airways) and a lawsuit has been filed against Facebook by a FB user when her Facebook activity was used in this regard.

Anthony.

Anthony
That's very interesting what you say about facebook, I had heard that any images you put up there are automatically owned by facebook (copyrighted and so on), I guess there is alot of crap going around out there about fb.

Dave,

There is no question there is a lot of crap circulating in relation to FB and this particular claim is something I have heard myself. However, I purposely did research it and there is no basis for it.

At the same time, FB would be shooting themselves in the foot with such a policy for the simple reason nobody would load their photos, thus taking away a serious aspect of FB.

Anthony.

Wow Anthony, you are very knowledgeable on this subject, and fair play to you for knowing your rights, it seems that this area has long been too much ignored, especially since s@n have demanded that I do the work, and they take all the rewards if any, which I feel is very unfair, and is a pity since the magazine itself is excellent in it's own right to read and be interactive with.

I'll have a read of the link regarding the copyright laws and educate myself !

Clear skies!

Keith..

yep, Anthony's right there. When you upload to Facebook you give them the rights to use your image however they want, should the want to, but you, the original owner, still retain the copyright.
Should be the same for the mags - I can't imagine them getting away with handover of the copyright itself - you're really just giving them a perpetual license to use the image.
Trev

Not from me anymore Trevor, unless s@n change their terms of course.

Keith.

Gentlemen,

Have you read closely the terms and conditions for Astronomy Photographer of the Year held each year by Royal Observatory Greenwich? I will give you a hint: S@N is one of the major sponsors.

Here are some quotes from the contest rules webpage ( www.rmg.co.uk/visit/exhibitions/astronom...r/competition/rules/ ):

(1) "you grant the Royal Observatory Greenwich a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to use, publicly perform and publicly display by means of the Flickr API (“Application Programming Interface”) your photo solely in connection with the group, competition and exhibition, without any further notice or remuneration to you. This applies to all images in the group including those not entered in the competition."

(2) "By entering your photo into the competition you agree to give the National Maritime Museum (‘Royal Observatory Greenwich’) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, in perpetuity licence to use, copy, modify, translate and/or adapt, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display by any means and in any media and create derivative works of, and copy, distribute, publicly perform and publicly display such derivative works of your photo, for the purposes of promoting the exhibition and the competition through press and marketing activity."

(3) "Please note that images may be used in the Sky at Night Magazine calendar, or be reproduced in the Magazine specifically in relation to the competition, for which no royalties will be payable.

Entered images may also be used as part of a planetarium show, for which no royalties will be payable."

I did not enter the first year of the contest specifically due to the above rules. However, I did participate for the second and third editions of the contest and, most probably, this year as well.

Anthony.

Worth a read regarding FB:
www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=270204724175

I think we're all in agreement shen we say that we dont mind
our images being used for non profit / education
but if some gimp that runs a site and makes money off it
by whatever means; advertising / direct sales
and uses a work without any permission, credit & renumeration
needs a kick in the arse.

We go spend the bucks on the gear, the hours upon hours
getting the shots, processing, learning how to do all this, taking the
time effort and interest to produce the work just for
them to flesh out thier site/mag/blog and in turn thier wallet?
In the words of Father Ted. Feck 'em

Frank_Ryan_jr wrote:

In the words of Father Ted. Feck 'em

Rather, "that would be an ecumenical matter"

Looks like S@N and the photography competition are taking the you know what....
I would not be inclined to submit anything to either of them, that's if i had images worth submitting

Interesting discussion.

I am a bit puzzled though Anthony: after all you have said, why would you still consider submitting your images to the Astronomy Photographer of the Year cmpetition?

Michael,

I see my exposure as somewhat limited given the fact that they allow five submissions and usually request three for further review and consideration. Two of my submissions in 2010 placed and I was informed about consequent use in exhibitions, a forthcoming book and the annual calendar in S@N.

Now if my images have been used elsewhere, this is something I am not aware at the moment.

Anthony.

Ah yes, you got notified of the book also.
At least we will get a copy of it.

BTW, I was in Edinburgh two weeks ago. Our hotel was based near St Andrew Square.
Just so happeend, there was a Science Festival, part of which included the display of science-based photographs in St Andrew Square.
About 1/3 were astronomy images, the majority of which were from the APOTY competition.
Your solar eclipse shot was one of them.

Michael,

I hope you enjoyed reading the terms and conditions for the book publication. For example, a one-time payment of 50 GBP per photo and irrespective of how many times the photo(s) are used in future editions.

Thanks for the exhibit photo involving by Siberian Totality shot! A similar exhibition is being planned for Croatia.

Anthony.