Advice about Professional Photographs (copyright, etc)

[vetrik]

This may be long - thanks to anyone who makes it through!

In Oct. of 2003, my now-DH and I had engagement pictures taken by the photographer we had booked for our wedding in May 2004 (the engagement sitting and 20 photos in an album were part of our wedding package). We received the pictures a couple weeks later as a sheet of small thumbnails and a CD with the pictures in software (cannot save the pictures off the CD). We were really happy with them, but with the holidays we had put off ordering the prints we wanted.

Fast forward to February. I suddenly found out that the photographer had been arrested in January for robbing a pizza shop with a ski mask and a machete, as well as holding up a woman at an ATM at knifepoint. Apparently his massive cocaine addiction had driven him to extreme measures.

Needless to say, we were more worried about finding a last minute photographer for our wedding in a few months than our deposit with him and the status of our engagement pictures. By the time our wedding was over, he had sawed off his electronic monitoring anklet while he was out on bail, been located in New Hampshire trying to flee to Vegas, pled guilty, and been sentenced to 7 years in jail. Not surprisingly, his photography studio had been closed (he was the owner).

Does anyone have any idea what could have happened to my pictures, and if there's any way I could get prints? I don't know if the now defunct photography shop still owns the copyright, and what would have happened to all the pictures they had. I know it's been a while, but we did lose our $500 deposit, and I would like to get a few copies of our engagement pictures.

 

[disneymom3]

Fast forward to February. I suddenly found out that the photographer had been arrested in January for robbing a pizza shop with a ski mask and a machete, as well as holding up a woman at an ATM at knifepoint. Apparently his massive cocaine addiction had driven him to extreme measures.

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I am sorry, but this sounds like an episode of a sitcom. I know I would be bumming about my pics too but how BIZARRE! My best advice for you concerning where the pics are now would be to contact the police. Maybe they have a contact number for someone who acted as trustee or something in the closing of the store.

 

[Toby'sFriend]

OMG - I thought this was going to be the standard "is it ok if I go to Walgreens and make a couple of copies of my kid's school pictures?"

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I have absolutely no advice. Well, what kind of software is the cd picture using? There has to be SOME way to get them off of there.

 

[vetrik]

I am sorry, but this sounds like an episode of a sitcom. I know I would be bumming about my pics too but how BIZARRE! My best advice for you concerning where the pics are now would be to contact the police. Maybe they have a contact number for someone who acted as trustee or something in the closing of the store.

Tell me about it - it was so surreal at the time! This is my favorite story of wedding planning nightmares!

 

[hiwaygal]

Wow!

Just...wow!

You might try posting on the photography board too...those folks might have some ideas.

 

[Geoff_M]

Wow, where to begin....

Copyrights: Unless you signed a contract with him that explicitly transferred the copyrights to you, then the photographer-turned-criminal still is the rights holder. The fact that his photo business is defunct doesn't make the copyrights go "poof". However, it sounds like the guy might be in the need of some cash for legal fees and other things, so perhaps you can write him and offer to purchase the rights from him for a nominal sum since it's unlikely that he'll be able to see you prints anytime soon. As far as getting the images, only he could answer that one.

$500 Deposit: Probably your only recourse would be small claims court, but I'd guess that he stuffed most of his assets up his nose, so any judgement would probably be meaningless.

 

[vetrik]

Thanks everyone for the help!

I'm not even worried about the $500 - I wrote that off as lost a while ago, and it never seemed worthwhile to chase after it. We ended up having to go with an amatuer photographer for the wedding (as everyone was booked 3 months before) who was much cheaper and I just factored the $500 into his cost in the wedding budget. Of course - that photographer has disappeared and 2 years later I have never gotten wedding pictures, which is a whole other story. I swear my wedding was photographically cursed!

Copyrights: Unless you signed a contract with him that explicitly transferred the copyrights to you, then the photographer-turned-criminal still is the rights holder. The fact that his photo business is defunct doesn't make the copyrights go "poof". However, it sounds like the guy might be in the need of some cash for legal fees and other things, so perhaps you can write him and offer to purchase the rights from him for a nominal sum since it's unlikely that he'll be able to see you prints anytime soon. As far as getting the images, only he could answer that one.

Thanks for the info - that's kind of what I figured. It's hard because #1, the contract never really mentioned what happened to the copyrights of the engagement "negatives" (they were actually high res digital images), and #2 the contract was never actually completed. The shop was out of business by the time of the wedding, so we never received anything, but also never paid the full contracted amount. I guess the contract was kind of half completed. We paid a deposit, he did the engagement sitting.

I think that's why I kind of let this go for so long - if I had paid the full amount and never received anything I would have been fighting long ago. I'm more than willing to pay for a few prints of the engagement pictures, but I feel kind of weird writing him in jail about pictures. Maybe I should just suck it up and send him a letter - people in jail like to get mail right?

 

[lindakmonty]

you can take the proofs you have to wal-mart and scan them, they'll print whatever you want, or put them on a cd for you. They should be able to print the ones that is on your cd as well. Since you never completed the contract there shouldn't be any copyright issues. Good luck. I had a crazy picture problem as well. We got married while on our WDW trip. We got married on the beach. The photographer never said how long they would take etc. 2 weeks later we called since we hadn't heard anything. She says, it'll take another 2 weeks... we wait, call again leave messages, leave emails...she totally will not communicate w/us. I had only purchased 20 photos and we'd order more if we wanted more. Well after the 7th week, dh called and threatened to have our attorney contact her since we had proof of what we paid for and had not received them. She called right back! 3 days later we received over 100 pictures!!! I stood at Wal-Mart for 1 1/2 hrs. scanning all of them and they put them on a disc for me. I took them home and printed what ever I wanted. Good luck!

 

[Geoff_M]

you can take the proofs you have to wal-mart and scan them, they'll print whatever you want, or put them on a cd for you.

You may want to read this thread before trying that: Walmart, Sam's Club, and Copyrights

 

[Caradana]

Okay, let me think. The key is probably to locate this guy's family, because they likely have his equipment and his computer (assuming that it didn't get sold or otherwise confiscated when the store closed). Was this wedding in RI? If so, get the yellow pages and start calling people with this guy's last name. Hopefully it is not "Smith." Start the calls by saying "I'm interested in paying for some photographs taken by John Doe a few years ago. Do you happen to know him?" (otherwise the family will immediately hang up thinking that you're law enforcement or a bill collector).

If you locate the family, offer them $100 to find the pix on the computer and send them to you, all rights released, paid on delivery. $100 might light a fire under them.

Good luck!

 

[MorganLeFey]

when the photographer I used for my older dd's bat mitzvah passed away, another photographer bought all the negatives. I was able to order my albums, prints, etc. from the new photographer. the new photographer told me he bought the negatives, but not the business itself, so that he didn't have to honor contracts or assume the deceased photographer's liabilities-- but that he was honoring most of the outstnding contracts anyhow.

you should check to see if someone bought the business or the negatives. the new owner will be glad to help you out.