Photo courtesy ASMP member Luke Copping
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Copyright is an important right, it affirms ownership, allows us to protect our rights, helps control usage, and gives us the ability to collect damages when our imagery is misused. Though too few do so, as a content creator copyrighting your images, video, animation, etc., continues to be good business. What has, and will continue to change, is the manifestation of your copyright in both the commercial and non-commercial marketplace. There are a number of…
The Copyright & The New Economy symposium held on April 21st was, for me, an eye-opening event. As the moderator for Copyright and the New Economy, I did a lot of research leading up to the event. A common thread that ran through the research, the morning presenters and the afternoon panel discussion point to a publishing landscape for photographers that is radically different than today. This landscape, while challenging, holds tremendous promise for photographers…
With The Copyright Act of 1976 and later revisions including the Berne Convention, artists were no longer required to register for copyright nor to provide copyright notice. In my opinion, these two facts have led to two decades of visual artists thinking that they were protecting their visual investments. For a commercial artist, registering the work prior to delivery to a client insures, in situation whereby a client fails to pay, the artist can use…
As still photographers move and expand into video because of the convergence of their tools, they often ask me about copyright, licensing and usage and how to apply that to video. Essentially they are trying to apply a licensing business model from their still photography and sometimes that doesn’t work in video production. The biggest distinction between shooting video and shooting still images is that for the most part a video camera operator is just…
Having a hard time reaching out to new clients? Pick up the phone and personally reconnect with past clients that you may have not heard from or worked with in a while. You will be surprised how this will boost your confidence and assist you in making long over due “cold calls” to potential clients.
When you’re on that call talking to a potential new client, remember to count to two before you answer any questions or ask new ones. This two-second buffer will help you to be a better listener because you won’t need to be thinking about what you’re going to say next while the other person is talking. The best negotiators are good listeners first, good at selling second.