I’ve taken some photo’s and a video over the past few days that have had the media all calling to ask my permission to use them (BBC, ITV, Sky etc) and they have all been correctly crediting me for them.

Now I’ve had an approach from a photos agency again asking for permission and wanting to talk about fees.

My own personal view is that as I’ve already posted them online and freely given permission when asked as long as I’m credited then I’m happy for this to continue and I’d rather no one would go about charging fees for them in the future.

Any thoughts/advice?

I got one of these on a Flickr pic. I asked for crediting as per the creative commons license that it was posted under. They said they couldn’t guarantee that they could do that so wanted to pay. I picked $30 (au) as it wasn’t too much and I wasn’t too bothered.

They should also be sending me whatever they use the pic in too.

Hi, I use picture libraries (for news content) every day so may be able to offer some relevant experience.

TBH, it’s an increasingly grey area with the growth of user-generated content and social media such as twitter/instagram.

If your picture is on Twitter, for example, some agencies will put it on their site and charge media for it – with a disclaimer that they don’t own the rights.

So you may be better off selling the pic to one agency, who could then defend the copyright.

Unfortunately I don’t have experience on the photographers’ side to advise of rates etc. But you are welcome to email me to discuss agencies’ reputations if you’d like.

Depends. Do you see this as a one off or as a potential source of income? If you let them off the once, they may try to take advantage.

Have a look at what other stock libraries charge for similar images and what the limitations on use are.

I would also caution that if you upload photographs regularly to any of the hosting sites (or even Facebook or other social media) then make sure that they are watermarked. EXiF data can be tampered with and is no guarantee of your compyright being honoured.

I use TSR Watermark which is available as a free download to do this. I generate a low-res watermarked image which I upload, then if anyone wants to use the image I come to an agreement and provide a high-res non-watermarked copy after payment (if any) has been made.

I’ve been asked by riders for hi -res copies of photos ive taken at races and I’ve obliged and not charged as I wasn’t out to make money. Next thing the photo is all over the team website as a backdrop and even used as a graphic on vehicles. It would have been nice to get something as I wasn’t aware it was going to be used for such heavy promotion.

It would have been nice to get something as I wasn’t aware it was going to be used for such heavy promotion.

http://creativecommons.org/choose/
The one you want is probably this
“Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported”
If you look at Roots & Rain http://www.rootsandrain.com/photos/515890
most people do a Commercial and Non Commercial price. Next time they mail say it’s free for personal and add the CC license in there.

http://www.londonfreelance.org/rates/

Thanks all it was a case of right place right time rather than any talent so it’s likely to be a one off event so I’m not that worried about any fees for it. But I do feel uncomfy about people passing it on themselves and profiting for it so the CC route is the way to go for these at least.